


The Misadventures of a Marmoran and a Human

by Straccia_Tella



Series: The Misadventures of a Marmoran and a Human [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (slight spoilers i guess), F/M, Fluff, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Implied Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Season 6 Spoilers, Slow Burn, Some Swearing, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Strangers to Lovers, how Krolia and Keith's dad spent their time together, mainly krolia being annoyed at how primitive earth's technology is, vlds6, voltron season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-04-25 18:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 82,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14384727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Straccia_Tella/pseuds/Straccia_Tella
Summary: The events that occured between Krolia and Keith's dad. Most are Krolia trying to adapt to her time on earth, whereas James has to to whatever he can to help Krolia return home. However, nobody said it was going to be easy, or pleasant, and first impressions don't go as well as either of them hoped it would. One tries to figure out this twisted chance meeting, while the other refuses to divulge secrets.





	1. The Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> (BIG NOTE: I'm going to make some changes at the beginning of the story for how Krolia and Keith's dad met, especially Krolia's mission. I'm going to go with what the canon season 6 gave us and make changes to the layout of James' home, but after that most of the story is going to stay the same.  
> Sorry for the sudden change, but season 6 has given me so much material and I don't want to write another Krolia/Keith's!Dad fic when I have one in progress right here.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first night when everything began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (WARNING: For those who read the fic from the start, I want to reiterate that I'm going to make a few changes, like how Krolia landed on earth, as well as a few layouts to James' home after the information we got from season 6. After that, the story isn't going to change much.)

 James woke up with a crick in his neck, and hoped that it was just due to the fact that he had slept in a chair and not because wasn't getting any younger. When he rubbed the hazy fog from his eyes, his whole body jolted up once he realized there was an alien woman who was laying on his couch fast asleep. He had barely managed to make her fit, leaving her legs to dangle over the edge. Memories of the night before surged into his mind and coming in small segments.

  He had been sleeping peacefully when something literally crashed into his backyard. When he turned the lights on in his room, all he saw was smoke and ran out to investigate. He came across something he assumed only happened in sci-fi movies or cliche tv shows. An alien spaceship, an actual spaceship had crashed neat his home, and it was nothing like that Galaxy Garrison had as far as he knew. 

  At first, he spent at least a few minutes staring at the smoking wreckage before running up and banging on what he assumed was the glass, asking if the pilot inside was alright. His fists weren't doing anything, so he ran back home towards his shack, grabbed an axe and quickly ran back.

  It took him a few swings to get the metal to finally bend, but when he did, he found the pilot. He saw their eye move through the broken visor in the dim moonlight that he had behind him before they passed out. After much more effort, he bent the metal away enough that he could gently pull them out to safety. 

  Getting this person(?) out wasn't the challenge, but the real task came when he had to carry them into his humble hovel. One part of him wanted to apologize for every time he accidentally hit some part of them on the side of his house while the other grumbled at why they couldn't have picked a better place to crash. Once inside, he decided that taking them up to his bedroom wasn't a good idea after analyzing the flight of stairs needed to get there, and he was already tired carrying then in. So he had to settle with putting them gently down on the downstairs couch. After gently setting them down, he took in a breath of air and allowed himself a moment to rest his weary muscles. 

  He glanced over their outfit. It looked like something out of a sci-fi show, and he was curious as to who or what this person was. However, they definitely weren't human, that much he was pretty sure about.

  "Sorry 'bout this," he said as he searched them for weapons. Couldn't be too careful. 

  He found a knife at their side and took it, gently placing it down at the coffee table. He didn't want to look at it for too long, the blade looked so clean that it was spooky. Next came to invading more of their personal space. 

  He checked the alien for wounds, to find a slightly sprained ankle, a few cuts on their arms and what appeared to be a a gash in their side. When he went to remove their helmet, the figure groaned in their sleep before settling back down.  After he found the button to unlock the helmet did he find out the pilot was a woman. Their face now more visible in the living room light was a light purple color with two darker purple marks curving up their cheeks, and James had to admit that they were quite pretty. He wasn't sure why that thought in particular came into his head. 

  After cleaning up whatever he could, he carefully draped a blanket over her and then proceeded to spend at least half of the night pacing around the living room, questioning his entire life and wondering how he was going to hide this. People at the nearby town would have to be _blind_ to not have noticed a strange UFO crashing onto Earth's surface.

  A low growl roused him from his thoughts, bringing him back to the present and the alien woman began to stir as her eyes slowly opened. He watched as she blearily blinked her eyes as they adjusted to the early morning light, or maybe just so she could see where the hell she was. 

  James straightened himself to look more imposing, but he somehow doubted the alien from outer space would find that the least bit intimidating. He wondered if she was going to search for her knife and attempt to mince him to pieces. The knife in question was safely strapped behind his back in a makeshift holster, but he wasn't about to let her know that. He needed to know what she was here for before she attempted to finish the job.

  He watched her eyes shot open in alarm, taking in her surroundings for a moment before glaring daggers at James once he fell into her field of vision.

  "...Well, you're up," James said, as he nervously put his hands in his pockets.

  He had hoped to one day meet alien life outside of Earth, but this was definitely _not_ the first words he would have wanted to say. Nor was this the situation he wanted to be in. 

  She continued to glare at him and James was a little worried that they may be running into some language barriers. _Crap_ , _I didn't think this through_ , James realized, just like how he didn't think through every other decision he's made in the past twelve or something hours. To his surprise and relief, the woman spoke.

  "Where am I?" The alien woman asked.

  "You can understand me?" James was amazed.

  One less thing to worry about, and he was too surprised to ask how they could understand the other.

  "Answer my question," she ordered in a low voice, James felt immediately compelled to oblige.

  "You crashed onto Earth last night, and now you're in my house." That was just the bare gist of it mainly coming from his perspective.

  The woman scrutinized James further, one of her hands reaching for something behind her, but apparently didn't find whatever she was looking for as her body suddenly froze mid-search. James pulled out the knife he took from its holster, and weighing his chances, carefully presented the weapon to the woman.

  "This is yours, right?" He tried to sound calm, but he could feel his blood beating in his ears. "If you promise not to kill me with this, I'll give it back."

  The woman tried to sit up, only getting waist off the couch before she hissed in pain, clutching her side. James attempted to approach her, but she gave him a warning growl.

  "Come any closer, and I'll show you that I don't need my sword to kill you," she said.

  _I can definitely see that_ , James thought, hoping she wouldn't be thinking of tearing his throat out with her sharp teeth. He wondered if she had claws... Best not to dwell on that for much longer. However, he was pretty sure he was holding a _knife_ in his hand, not a sword.

  _Don't go questionin' the scary lady who can probably kill you with her bare hands_ , James decided and in a slow movement put his hands up in surrender, holding the knife as loosely as possible. The last thing he wanted to loose was the rest of his limbs.

 "I'm not here to hurt you. Trust me. If I wanted to have you killed, don't you think I woulda done it by now?" He held out the blade again, making eye contact with her. "Look, I'll put it right there, okay? So don't kill me."

  Her eyes remained in a perpetual glare, following his movement like a cat stalking its prey. He attempted to walk over to her as slowly as possible, placing the knife down on his coffee-table, just within her reach. He then took a step back, his heart pounding heavily in his chest. He watched her reach out to grasp the hilt, glancing down at  the blade and saw her body begin to relax. A couple of minutes passed and all of his limbs were still intact. So far so good.

  "Thank you." She said, putting the knife somewhere he couldn't see. "This blade is... very important to me."

  "No problem,"  James muttered. "So, how come you crashed on Earth? We haven't even made contact with anything livin' outside our solar system."

  She suddenly got defensive, "That's none of your conc-!"

  Her voice cut off and she doubled over, taking in a sharp inhale of air. James began to worry that she had opened her wound up.

  "Hey, hey, hey, take it easy, you need rest!" James said, getting close enough to lay her head gently back down onto the makeshift pillow he made out of spare clothing.

  She was apparently in too much pain to try and brush his help away, so he knelt by her side so he could talk to her at eye level.

  "Alright, I won't go askin' questions about your alien space travel or whatever 'til you want to. But as long as you're here, I need you to listen to me. There isn't a hospital 'round here for miles, and all I can do is give you the best that I got. So please, just rest. Maybe you'll feel better after you get some food in you."

  The look of pain passed, and she eyed James again with less disdain than last time.

  "Fine," she grumbled turning her face away from him.

  He stood up, running his hand through his hair and sighed.

  "Well, I'll go make breakfast, if you need anything just call me over."

  She didn't say anything as he walked over to his stove, turning on the flame. He glanced over his shoulder to the thinly veiled window tp see that that the sun had barely come up. However, he was too wired to even consider going back to sleep.

  This was not how he thought he would be spending his day.

* * *

 

  Strange. That was the first word Krolia would have used to describe this creature.

  He didn't seem too shocked to see a Galra, but that may be due to the fact that as he said, " _We haven't even made contact with anything livin' outside our solar system_ ", or maybe it was something else entirely. Such as him apparently being blind to danger.

  He didn't seem like any other species she had previously encountered. Then again, she had never traveled this far outside of the empires reach.

  She grimaced as she tried to push herself up further from her resting area so she could sit up properly. Once she breathed enough that the pain in her abdomen subsided, she looked down at her suit to find a hole through it. Underneath was a white bandage that smelled of some kind of ointment that she couldn't place. The idea of having a scar didn't bother her, but how it would likely remind her forever of her failure to the mission did sting her pride.

  She was assigned on one of the Galra scouts for the empire, trying to search for one of the lions of Voltron. After the empire had discovered and taken the Red lion, they had found a similar quintessence reading on a planet in a solar system they've never traveled to. So off she went, and lo and behold, the planet "Earth" was housing a lion of Voltron. While Krolia knew the consequences of blowing her cover, she couldn't allow the Galra to get their hands on another lion. When she was ordered to help search, she had to make a split-tick decision. 

  "Vrepit Sa," she said as she pulled back and began firing on the scout who had been partnered with her. 

  It didn't take her long to take the other fighter pilot out, but her ship sustained damage to its wing, causing her to spiral down to the planet below.

  She tried desperately to pull at the controls and tried somehow to slow her descent as the alarms around her were blaring and telling her what she already knew. Her ship was going to crash and there was very little she can do but grit her teeth and hope for no mortal injuries. If she wasn't going to quickly die from the crash, she was most certainly going to be stranded on an unknown planet for the rest of her days not knowing whether or not it was inhabited. 

  When she woke up, all she felt was a dull pain, and panic. There was a moment when she managed to look up to see someone opening her ship and she assumed due to her blurry vision that this creature was trying to help her. After that, she passed out again and the next thing she remembered was waking up in a strange home, bandaged up and missing her knife.

  Krolia pulled out her knife, staring at the Marmoran insignia engraved into the jewel on the hilt. She naively wondered if anyone would ask whether or not she was dead. Her gaze moved to her reflection in the blade, and her thoughts began to slowly slip away, leaving her mind as empty as the void of space itself. She was tired.

  Now that she wasn’t with the Blades, she wasn’t sure what else she could do in her position. She was as good as dead to the empire, so what else could she really do? Her… caretaker would probably just suggest rest for the next few quintants. Despite her injury, she was already getting antsy and wanted to do something, like searching for the possibility of a lion that was hidden on this planet. 

  “Hey,” he said, setting down a bowl of some steaming substance on his small table. “You okay?”

  Krolia’s eye drifted to see his reflection as well, wondering how long he had been standing there. She even began to wonder how long she had been lost in her thoughts staring at her blade. 

  “I’m fine,” she muttered, putting it away.

  “Well, I got some food, if you’re hungry.”

  Krolia glanced down at the bowl. Despite living in a universe where the food looked plenty strange, she wasn’t sure what to make of the mush that this male was presenting her.

  “… What in the stars is this?”

  “Oatmeal.” He replied, scratching the back of his head. “If you don’t like it, I have some eggs, toast and dried fruit I can prepare. You guys have some of those things up in space, right?”

  Krolia picked up the bowl, grasping the spoon that stuck out from the goop and sniffed the contents. It didn’t smell like the food goo she and the other Galras would eat, but it wasn’t bad. Though it had the consistency of mud, it didn't taste anything like it. At least she could stomach it. She was three quarters of the way done when she decided to talk to her new companion again.

  “How does your kind manage to eat food like this?”

  “First off, my kind is called “humans”,” the male said. “Secondly, I don’t exactly have a lot of time to travel from here to the supermarket every day to buy fresh produce, so I have to make do with some stuff that won’t spoil that fast.”

  Krolia looked up at him. He really didn’t seem like the type who wanted to travel too much.

  “Don’t you have a vehicle for transportation?”

  “Yeah, but gas ain’t cheap,” he sighed, checking on her bowl every now and then as if waiting for her to turn it into an improvised weapon. “Luckily for the both of us, you didn't land too far away from my house.”

   Both of them fell silent. Their eyes widened, but for very different reasons.

  “Shit!” He cursed, running his hand over his eyes.

  He dashed over to the machines piled up on one side of the cramped room, turning knobs while muttering under his breath. Krolia managed to tilt her head to get a glimpse at what her companion was working on. It looked like an old fashioned klygarg, but she quickly dismissed the thought.

  Where did she land exactly? She didn’t want to draw any more attention than absolutely necessary. What if these “humans” contacted the Galra Empire? Despite what her companion said, she wasn’t sure if the Galra truly didn’t conquer this part of galaxy.

  Static crackled through the air as James seemed to turn the knob to just where he wanted when a female voice replaced that sound.

  “ **Reports have come in of a strange meteor streaking the sky last night, causing some minor disturbances in the area. However, as of now, there has been no attempt to investigate the strange occurence**.”

  “So people know about your ship, but don't know it's a ship.” The human muttered, and Krolia just got both of her feet onto the floor when he turned around. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait, what are you doing? You need to rest!”

  “Take me to where my ship crashed,” Krolia said, gritting her teeth through the pain. “I need to make sure it’s still operational.

  “You can’t go out in your condition!”

  “You humans don’t seem ignorant enough to call my ship a “meteor”. I can't be too careful on this planet, and if they do decide to investigate my ship cannot fall into anyone's hands. It's my only way off of this planet,” Krolia said, trying to push herself up as she clutched her side. “My condition is the least of my concern.”

  “No, you need to-“

  He stopped mid-sentence as a cold blade pressed against the side of his throat. Krolia was running out of patience, and as grateful as she was that he was helping her, she couldn’t afford to lose anything else.

  “You _will_ take me to my ship, human!” She yelled, meeting his gaze.

  She couldn’t think clearly, and at this point, she just wanted to get her point across to him as clearly as possible. He looked so calm as they continued to stare each other down and it annoyed her to no end.

  “James.”

  “What?”

  “That's my name.”

  “I didn't ask, and I don’t care.”

  “Listen, if we’re gonna be working together, you should at least know my name and not refer to me as “human” all the time.”

  Based off of his tone, she couldn't believe he was actually joking. 

  Krolia was loosing the will to argue.

  “Fine, James. Now if we're done, take me to-“

  “I haven’t gotten your name yet,” James interrupted and Krolia pressed her sword’s edge deeper into his throat.

  “My name isn’t important.”

  “Like I said, if we’re going to be workin’ together, we should know each other’s names. I refuse to call you ‘Galra’, or alien lady for however long you're staying here.” James seemed to notice the growing frustration in Krolia’s eyes. “Just do this little thing for me, okay? Do this, and I’ll take you to where your ship should be.”

  Krolia hesitated. She couldn’t afford getting wrapped up in something bigger than herself, but did she really have a choice? As paranoid as she wanted to be, she felt she could trust James. He may be the only person on this planet who won’t stab her in the back. Or worse… She lowered her blade, letting her name roll off her lips.

  “Krolia.”

  “Krolia,” James repeated and grinned, like she hadn’t held a blade to his jugular just ticks ago. “Alright, good to finally meet you.”

  He held his hand out, but she didn't take it. She said nothing as she willed her blade to turn back into a knife. The somewhat bewildered and excited look on his face actually amused her.

  “That explains the sword,” he muttered. 

  Just as she managed to finish the food and place it back on the table, James was eyeing her curiously. She didn't like being stared at.

  “Did I drop some food onto my lap?” She asked in annoyance.

  “No, nothing like that,” James said and actually looked embarrassed. “Just, before we leave, how do you feel about a change of clothes?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	2. First Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two finally go off to retrieve Krolia's ship while still trying to navigate around the other. After they move it to a safe location, Krolia ponders on what she could do now, while James tries to give her as much as much space as possible.

  She had refused the new clothes, preferring her suit and now looked like she was going to criticize his speeder that was sitting out by his shack as she grumpily clutched her side. Things were going along smoothly.

  “She ain’t pretty but she can fly,” he said, patting it affectionately after tossing in the last bit of equipment he thought they’d need. “It was an old model that I got for cheap and then refurbished the whole thing so it runs smoothly.”

  “So you’re certain that this thing isn’t going to fall apart the tick it comes off the ground?” Krolia asked.

  “What now?” James asked.

  He hoped she wasn’t referring to a literal tick, but for all he knew, aliens measured things in animal sizes.

  “A tick,” Krolia replied, holding up her index finger. “A little more than a moment.”

  “Oh, here we call that a “second”.”  
  Krolia’s frown deepened and James got the feeling the thought that was going through her head was, “ _These humans are stupid_.”

  “We can go over measurements later, right now, we need to get going.” He stepped aside and held an arm out to Krolia. “This is faster than carrying everyhing, right? Hop on.”

  If she was limping, she was doing her best to hide it as she walked over to the craft. It took her about a minute to get to the seat and sit down, her stoic expression remained plastered on her face. James hopped on himself and grabbed the handlebars, turning his head back to talk to Krolia.

  “I suggest you hold on, just in case.”

  “I can manage,” Krolia grumbled.  
  _I warned ya,_ James thought as he pulled down on the bars and felt the engine roar to life and the machine lift itself off the ground. His heart began to beat in his chest, and a grin grew on his face.

  “Here we go!!”

 The air was whipping in his face as the mountains around them became mere blurs. Only a few things in life gave him this much joy, and flying definitely was on the top of that list. The sense of freedom, the speed, the adrenaline. It was so addicting, just for the sense of freedom and adventure alone.

  “I hope you’re planning on actually getting to our destination and not tossing me off in the middle of nowhere!” Krolia yelled over the roar of the engine and wind.

  He got the feeling she was actually gripping the seat of his speeder since he wasn’t feeling her arms around his waist. That image stuck in his head and he tried not to laugh.

  “I did warn ya to hold on!” James yelled back and got no reply from Krolia.

  They traveled for a good two minutes before James slowed down the hovercraft and landed it gently onto the ground. Krolia slid off, looking for the wreckage and James followed soon after.

  “You landed a little ways in there,” James said, walking ahead.

  He took the lead, and Krolia followed behind, not saying a word. The trek wasn’t that hard, but the silence between the two of them was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. James had spent at least a four years out in the desert by himself, and the quiet hadn’t bothered him. Was it because he had to finally deal with someone one on one for an extended period of time? He turned back to Krolia who stood out like a sore thumb in her outfit and wanted to make some small talk.

  “Was a lot easier to find last night with the bit of smoke that rose from your ship. D’you think it’ll still be working once we find it?”

  She continued to say nothing, leaving him to feel a bit awkward for attempting to start a conversation. She looked more focused on keeping her footing than paying attention to anything he was saying.

  “If walkin’ gets too difficult just tell meee-!”

  His voice pitched as gravity pulled him downward, his foot slipping off an edge of the crater and the only thing that saved him was Krolia grabbing onto the scruff of his jacket, making him look like Buster Keaton leaning against the wind. James felt his heart fly up to his throat as he looked down and spotted the dented ship, its colors similar to Krolia’s suit.

  “…found your ship.” He croaked as she tugged backwards, causing him to stumble, feeling his heart ramming against his rib cage as he held a hand against his chest. “Thanks.”

  “Are all you humans this clumsy around your environment, or is it just you?” Krolia asked, walking over to the ledge to peek down at her ship. Thankfully it wasn't that deep.

  James decided to not acknowledge the insult and waited for his breathing to even out before he glanced over the edge as well to gauge the distance.

  “There should be a small pathway we can find down there.” He looked around to find another slanted pathway that wound down to where Krolia’s ship lay. “I think that dip over there should be good footing for us to get down safely.”

  Krolia completely ignored his observation as she simply jumped down and rolled after she hit the ground. James was almost impressed. Almost.

 “… Or if you’re a space ninja you can totally just jump down, no worries. I’ll be usin’ the safer route like a normal person. Don’t start it without me.” James muttered as he walked on the path that normal people would take.

  When he finally got down, jumping the last bit, he stopped to admire Krolia’s ship as she examined it. At night, it was hard to see as it almost blended into the night’s shadows, but now with more light, it was marvelous. Despite it being at a bit of angle from how it crashed, James could still see how much different the alien ship was to earth’s. It was sleeker than most of the clunky cargo ships that the Garrison had, the engines didn’t look too damaged. Krolia continued her silent examination as James stepped closer to get a better look.  

  “This is amazing.”

  “Don’t get too excited. It’s mainly for reconnaissance, nothing really special.” Krolia said, pulling up a small purple screen from her arm and she did a small scan of the ship.

  So far, nothing besides the wing seemed destroyed, but she’d have to check everything else manually. She unsheathed her knife and James watched as it shifted into sword in a burst of light.

  “Yeah, but this thing has blasters on it. That instantly makes it better than anything earth has.”

  “Yes, you humans are further behind in technology than I would have guessed,” Krolia said halfheartedly as she dug the sword’s tip into a panel and pulled down with her weight.

  “You’re still healing, you shouldn’t be stressing yourself,” James said, wondering why he was still bringing this up.

   He knew by now that Krolia preferred to play by her own rules: do anything to get her mission done, even if it meant hurting herself. Whatever that mission may be.

  “I just jumped off of that ledge with no strain on my injury, I don’t think there’s much to worry about.” She grunted and the panel snapped open, revealing what looked like three canisters lined up with weird symbols above them. “Good, they’re still intact.”

  James simply stood there, unsure of what he could do. He was almost scared to even touch the ship, what if he made it explode? He took to glancing up at the sky, dawn beginning to ebb away as morning approached. What time was it anyway? He really needed a watch.

  “Help me with this,” Krolia said and James immediately ran towards her as she pressed her hand against a touch pad, causing the back of the ship to open like doors.

  They unfortunately stopped midway, leaving barely enough room for either of them to squeeze in.

  “On three?” He asked, as he braced both hands onto one side.

 Krolia nodded as she put her knife away and took the other. James looked at her to make sure they were both ready.

  “One. Two. Three!” He said and they both grunted, prying the doors open as far as they could.

  It was now wide enough that they could both slip in easily and Krolia stumbled towards the control panel, trying to right herself up against the slanted ship. As she pulled up the screens, she tested the thrusters of the ship as well as any of the other controls. For now, she would ignore the gaping hole where James had cut and pries open to free her.

  “If you keep gaping like that you’ll get dust in your mouth.” Krolia said as her fingers flew across the keys as data scrolled in front of her.

  She heard a small but audible clap as James walked towards her side.

  “What’s all that say?” He asked, peering over to see the lines of some language he couldn’t read passing Krolia’s fingertips, "Those are definitely not any languages known to Earth."

  “These are the current diagnostics for the ship, and so far, nothing good has come up.”

  While she looked calm appearance wise, she was beginning to panic. Her thrusters were online, but they didn’t have enough power to burst through the atmosphere. Her energy supply was still good, but it wouldn’t be enough if she had the chance of getting off of Earth.

  “Do you happen to have any spare mechanical parts lying around your shack that I could use to make repairs?” Krolia asked as she pulled up an image of the engine, certain parts highlighted in red.

  “My shack ain’t exactly stocked with spare ship parts,” he said and Krolia turned to look at him with a frown. “The best I get are from scrap piles and regular tools I use to tune up my speeder or fix it.”

  Krolia was tempted to just punch the control panels to see if that would work, but she kept that temptation in check. She could beat up her ship when it was at a safe location.

  “In any case, I think it would be better to move the ship away from your residence. That way I can check on it as often as needed in peace, and you won't get blamed for trying to hide me.”

  “You sure about this?” James asked.

  Krolia sighed and nearly jolted in pain. It took a lot of effort for her to not clutch her side as she was sure her wound was opening slightly. She didn't want the human to start pampering her with his worry.

  “The ship being close enough to your facilities will be the last place these people would look. They’ll be looking for the crash site, and will probably think I escaped or write it off as something else. Either way, if they don’t find anything, they’ll let your people think it was just a small meteor and there’s nothing to worry about.”

  She watched James run a hand through his hair, glancing at all of the alien tech surrounding him. She was surprised that he hadn’t fainted from being overwhelmed by these revelations.

  “I’m not trying to say it’s a bad idea, I just don’t know if it’s really worth the risk,” he said.

  Krolia almost laughed, but managed a small grin instead as she fired up the engines.

  “You’re harboring an alien whose species known to have conquered most of the universe and is part of a secret organization working against the empire. I think you’re already taking huge risks just by keeping me in your home.”

  James lips pursed but even he seemed to agree with that point.

  “Now, the ship has enough energy to fly over these edges and get back to your speeder, but after that you’ll need to pull me the rest of the way.”  
  He merely nodded and braced himself against the sides of the walls.

  “All yours.”

  She focused on the controls, gently pulling up and feeling the ship shudder. She pulled up a little harder, and felt the ship being to slowly ascend. Soon, they were hovering over the rocks, and Krolia guided the ship forward, praying that it wouldn’t start breaking down in midair. Once they got to where James parked his speeder, the fuel was already dangerously low and she gently landed her ship next to his. After that, she turned around and looked at James, his eyes shining brightly with a wide smile on his face.

  “That, was awesome,” he breathed, and Krolia tried not to feel too proud of herself.

  All they did was fly a few feet off the ground, barely showing the small ship's true capabilities. She pretended she was looking at the monitors for further diagnostics and looked back at James, who was still marveling over their flight.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting to your speeder?” She asked.

  James paused before jolting.

  “Oh, right. Right, right, sorry!” He ran out of the ship, leaving Krolia with a smile of her own.

 

* * *

 

  They had parked her ship in a cave less than a mile away from James’ home that was covered by huge rocks and provided plenty of shade. Despite all that, the heat was slowly beginning to eat at her strength, and she was regretting not taking up James on his offer for a change of clothes from all the sweat that was pouring down her face. Yet she continued to work on her ship, checking the diagnostics, the controls and trying to get a signal out.

   “Come on, come on, come on….” She said, her fingers flying over the holographic keyboard as she tried to find something on this stupid ship that was functioning.

  The communicator was still on, so she immediately went to that and desperately hoped her message would get out. As the screen began to crackle either due to the crash, bad signal or because she had hit it a few times it was still not a good sign. When the recording began, she tried to quickly get her message out.

  “Kolivan, I landed on a planet named Earth in the system that was said to house another lion of Voltron, and I’m alive. My ship isn’t beyond repairs but it’s not in any condition to break through the atmosphere. I can’t guarantee I’ll be in constant contact but I’ll make do and search for the other lion. Signing off.”

  The screen flickered before vanishing, leaving her alone in the ship. Her body ached, but she wasn’t sure if it was because of the jump she took, or from trying to work on the ship alone. She sighed as she brushed the sweat off of her forehead and headed out. As she exited her ship, she turned around to look at it, wondering how different things could have been had she not acted the way she did.  

  “Knowledge or death,” she muttered, turned around and walked off.

  The sun wasn’t doing her mood any favors, and as she trudged back to James’ home, and when she saw the two story house appear in the distance, she felt relieved. She glanced at the smaller house next door and tested the door. It didn’t open automatically like most doors she was used to, and after turning the odd handle, she found nothing but what looked like containers and more odd machines strewn around the small space. She closed the door and then walked towards the house, her feet walking on the wooden steps that creaked under her weight.

   Inside the air was cooler, and James was busy making food based on the smell. When he noticed her walking in, his eyebrow rose up in concern.

  “You look tired, any good news?”

   As she collapsed on the couch, she sighed as she pulled at the collar of her suit. This definitely wasn’t the best color to wear out in a climate like this. When she looked up, she saw that James was offering her a glass of water with ice in it that she quietly grasped.

 “Besides the fact that I can’t get anything to work and I might be stuck here for a while?” Krolia said, taking a huge gulp of water and relishing the cool feeling running down her throat. “I can at least still run diagnostics and it can pathetically hover off of the ground.”

  “That’s good.”

  She didn’t reply as she downed the rest of the water in a few more gulps, sighing as she let the cool condensation nip at her sweaty palm and returned it to James. Once it was in his hands, he stood there for a moment and spoke again.

  “I’m going to be out shopping for more food. There are spare clothes are on the chair over there and you can use the shower upstairs on the right,” he regarded her wary look. “Nobody ever comes out here, so don’t worry.”

  “After last night, I don’t know if that’s still going to be true,” Krolia said. “Won’t there be someone coming out here to inspect the crash site soon?”

  “Good point,” James said, tapping the canteen against his leg. “If it’ll make you feel better, when I come back you’ll hear something like a horn, and that’ll let you know it’s me.”

  Krolia merely nodded as she grasped her hands and looked down, wondering how she had become so useless. She listened to James footsteps as he walked around the shack, grabbing items and writing on something Krolia couldn’t clearly see. Just as he reached for the door her turned to her.

  “Oh, almost forgot. To turn on the water, you need to pull the faucet in the tub first, and then you can pull either knob for hot or cold water. Cold’s on the left, hot’s on the right.” He paused for another moment before saying one more thing. “I won’t be gone for long.”

  Krolia wanted to ask why she cared but he was already gone. The engine of his vehicle revved outside, the dirt was crunching beneath the wheels, and soon the sounds vanished.

  She looked around the house, feeling the quietness of it all. She couldn’t stand sitting around for long, so she grumbled to herself, grabbed the clothes off of the chair and headed for the showers, grabbing the rails for support. The least she could do was wash off the grime and sweat. Maybe a shower was what she needed to get her head back in order.

 

* * *

 

  Grocery shopping used to be easy. Pick this, pick that, get whatever on sale, and purchase other things like toilet paper. Now, he wondered whether or not Krolia could eat half of the things he was buying. He couldn’t exactly feed her oatmeal for the rest of her days, so he decided to buy the usual things, but added in more vegetables and fruits. It’d be better to find out what Krolia could stomach now instead of finding out later.

  As he shopped, he considered starting a small farm to save him time and money. But one, he didn’t think the land around his shack was suitable for growing things, besides the big tree that stood outside and two, he didn’t exactly have a green thumb. He was pretty sure when he was still working that he killed a succulent he got as a gift. His mind wandered as he moved around, putting things in his cart and by the time he got to the cash register, he had about three bags worth of groceries.

  “Will this be all?”

  James snapped out of his thoughts to see the cashier gesturing to his long line of items.

  “Yes, this is all,” James replied and reached for the wallet in his back pocket. 

  “What happened to your eyebrow? Must have been pretty bad if it left a scar behind.”

  James had to keep himself from not flexing that part of his face and attempted to play it off as nothing as best as he could.

  “Shaving,” He said, which was the first excuse to come to his mind.

  The woman tilted her head quizzically as she began to check the items coming towards her.

  “My hand accidentally slipped. Trying to thin out my eyebrow. Long time ago.” James added with a little laugh. “Yeah, that happened.”

  Her eyebrow didn’t fall any lower.

  He started to flip through his bills a little bit faster while avoiding any kind of eye contact. There was a different story behind the scar, but he didn't feel like gossiping with the cashier today. Now he wished he had gotten into the self-checkout aisle.

“Well, at least you didn't cut yourself from what happened last night,” the woman said, lowering her voice like anyone could be listening in, which was what James feared.

“What happened last night?” He asked.

  The woman feigned a look of surprised, but her eyes flashed with a glimmer of triumph. She had finally got someone's ear to listen to her stories. 

  “You didn’t hear the cruiser ship _at all_ last night? I mean, I’m not sure it was really a cruiser, but it was _loud_. The Garrison even had a report on the news about it this morning, they claimed it was a meteor, but I bet they were doing a test flight that had slight malfunctions. Good thing no one got hurt.”

 _And no one knows that it was actually an alien ship that crashed onto Earth last night,_ James thought and then returned to his activity like nothing happened.

  “Sorry, but I was sleepin' after seven.”

  The woman pouted slightly, like she was hoping they would have been able to exchange conspiracy theories on the possible UFO that startled the town and crashed who knew where. But James felt even if he did admit to hearing it, he didn’t think his racing heartbeat would be able to keep him calm during the conversation. He thought he was pretty good at lying, but he could only do so much under the stress he put himself in.

  Would the Garrison be out there looking for his new friend’s ship? Thankfully they didn’t know where his shack was, so he was safe from questioning, but he couldn’t help worrying. As he paid for his groceries, the woman bagged all his supplied and handed it to him with a smile on her face.

  “Well, have a good day.”

  “Thank you,” James replied and turned to leave with the bags before she called him out.

  “Hey, hold on a sec!”

  He turned and saw her winking at him while gesturing to his cut eyebrow.

  “The next time you want to try and groom your eyebrow, come back anytime and I can recommend a good stylist for that.”

  James couldn’t help but grin, “Thanks.”

  She waved him good-bye as the sliding doors closed behind him. He had never felt more watched in his entire life as he threw the groceries into the seat next to him and started up the engine.

  

* * *

 

  Krolia felt a lot better after the shower, and although the clothes James set out were long in some areas and others a little tight, it was better than nothing. Her Galra suit was a bit beat up at the moment, and she’d have to find a way to fix the hole made on her side. After she folded it up and slipped it under the couch. She rubbed the towel over her hair a bit more, trying to dry the last bit of water that still clung on as she looked around the small living room.

  She was too restless this morning to really observe her surroundings, and now that she had her ship, she could take her time looking at everything. What else was she going to do? She couldn't search for the lion in her current condition, and after bandaging up her wound again, she wanted to wait for it to be mostly healed so it wouldn't give her an infection. 

  She walked over to the klygarg that James had fiddled with earlier, only observing the buttons, and not trusting herself to try and see if she can get a signal out to the Blades on it. She made a small sweep of his other machines, from a small black box with glass, a speaker and then found her eyes go onto a small wooden box with two identical cases inside. She took one out and held it up, it was about the size of her hand, made of black plastic and had a thick antennae poking out from the top. As she pressed the button on the side she spoke into it.

  "Hello?"

  " _Hello?_ "

  Krolia turned to find her voice coming out through the identical machine with a bit of static and placed it back in the box, making note of it. She moved to investigate somewhere else when her foot hit something against the floor. Krolia glanced down to find what looked like multi colored bricks filled with the white object James had written on before he left piqued her interest.

  She picked one up with ease, turning it around curiously in her hand and was surprised to find writing inside after the cover fell open. She flipped through the thin white sheets with ease, and let her eyes roam across each line. Even though she couldn’t read anything but one could make an educated guess from the pictures that these were manuals on machines. This was probably how James figured out how to assemble his hovercraft. Another one of the objects had pictures of constellations, but why a human like James would be interested in that was beyond her. 

   After placing it back on the floor, she turned to one of the walls and found a blue poster with an object she couldn’t quite make heads or tails of. It looked like it could be part of an engine, but she couldn’t be sure. She was better at fighting and infiltrating than putting machines together.

  Suddenly, her nerves jolted when she heard the sound of an engine, causing her to jump over to the back kitchen window and peeking out from the curtains. She couldn’t see it, but it sounded like a vehicle coming towards the house. While she wanted to relax, she was waiting for the horn sound that James described. But the only sound she heard was the revving engine, and it was coming closer.  

* * *

 

  He would normally enjoy the passing scenery as he drove, but his mind was running through all of the things he wanted to ask Krolia, with one hand on the wheel and the other pressing his knuckles into his cheeks. Too much has happened in less than twenty-four hours, and he was surprised that he was still holding onto his sanity. There were so many questions he wanted to ask Krolia, but he didn’t want to scare her, or feel like he was coming off as an annoyance. Their current relationship was in a really odd place and he didn’t want to make it even more awkward by causing her to clam up if he ever opened his mouth.

  He then decided that it might be best to just leave her to herself or a while, and let her get used to her surroundings before bombarding her with his internal thoughts.

  As he neared his shack, he was about to honk his horn to notify Krolia until he spotted a Garrison vehicle parked outside. His blood immediately froze and he nearly slammed on the accelerator as he approached. Standing outside was a man dressed in a military garb, wearing a scowl that seemed to be his permanent expression, with his hands behind his back and watching James’ jeep come up.

  After James parked and got outside, he tried to sound as calm as possible. He walked up to the other man and the two stared each other down.

  "Hey there, what can I do for you?" James asked, trying to stall for time and forced himself not to look over at the windows to see if Krolia was out of sight or if she was smart enough to find a hiding spot.

 “My name is Iverson, and I've come here on official business for the Galaxy Garrison.”  
  “James,” James answered, not offering a hand because they were currently sweating it up in his pockets, and because Iverson didn't offer his hand either. "What's the Garrison want from a hermit like me?"

  "That's exactly what we're going to discuss right now," Iverson said, hands behind his back that was as straight as a board. James had only heard of the Garrison, but he knew immediately that this guy was the drill sergeant.

  "Which would be?" James asked. 

  "We've got reports last night of an unknown object crashing nearby your residence, and I've come by to ask what you've seen."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	3. Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iverson invades James' space, and later that night, Krolia receives a weird dream that she can't make heads or tails about.

“We haven’t got all day,” Iverson grumbled as James pretended to fumble for his keys. 

 “You know, hold these for a sec,” James said, turning around and dumping his groceries into Iverson’s unsuspecting arms, blocking his vision. “I got some vegetables and jars in there, so _please_ don’t drop ‘em!”

“Get on with it or I might consider dropping these on your feet!” Iverson yelled, straining under the weight. 

Knowing he couldn’t stall forever, but hoping to buy Krolia a few more seconds, James acted as if the door was jammed, when he hadn’t locked the thing in months. He lived in the middle of nowhere, nobody would come out this far to meet with him. After pretending to rattle the handle a few more times he pushed it open and held his breath. 

Krolia was nowhere to be seen. He hoped that she was hiding somewhere. With what he knew about her space-ninja skills that thought eased his worries a bit.

  "Sorry 'bout that, old doors, you know?" James gave his guest an apologetic grin over his shoulder. 

“Where do I put this?” Iverson groaned and James quickly pointed him towards the dining table. 

As Iverson set the bags down, James’ eyes quickly scanned the room. He began wondering how he’d keep the other man away from the bedroom and bathroom, where Krolia was more likely to be hiding. If Krolia was in either of those places she might kill Iverson if he ever finds her. The kinda sad part was that James couldn’t deny that the thought didn’t sound tempting. 

“For a lot of space you sure made a mess out of it.” Iverson said, dusting off his hands and looking around the home. 

“Well I’m sure you didn’t come all the way out here because you heard about this beautiful mug of mine,” James said. “Speaking of mugs, care for some coffee?”

“No,” Iverson grumbled. 

_What an ass,_ James thought going to the refrigerator to grab a water bottle. _But I need to keep him down here._

“Why is the Garrison so interested in a meteor crash from the other night? Don’t you have space programs you need to be funding for instead of looking for a potential space rock from the sky?” James asked, cracking open the plastic cap. 

“Listen, I don't want to waste your time as I'm sure you don't want to waste mine, so listen carefully. We just need to know if you saw anything unusual last night,” Iverson said. 

Well, “said” didn’t feel like the right description, anything that came out of this guy’s mouth sounded like an order or a barb directed at whoever he was addressing. 

“Straight to the point,” James sighed putting one hand in his pocket while the other vaguely waved his bottle around. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I slept like a baby at nine, an’ didn’t hear a peep ‘til six.”

“Hmph,” Iverson said to himself as if doing the math of the time of the crash to James’ testimony in his head. “You normally sleep in that soon?”

“Well, sometimes I change my schedule up.Time changes people, and the greatest thing that can kill you out here aren’t the creatures or dehydration, it’s the monotony.”

“I didn’t come for a damn philosophy lesson! Did you, or did you not hear or see something last night? The crash had the power of a small earthquake when it hit and it was loud enough that people at least miles away from you could hear it! Since you were so close to the source, there’s no way you _couldn’t_ have noticed something!” 

“What are you getting mad at me for? I answered your damn question didn’t I?” 

Iverson sighed as he did a small walk around the living room. 

“We have suspicion to believe that it wasn’t a meteor that crashed on the earth’s surface. There’s reason to believe it was a ship housing a species from another planet,” Iverson said. 

James wasn’t the best at acting, but what the hell, he might as well give it a shot. 

“What the shit are you talkin’ about? An’ people say I’m crazy for living all alone in the desert,” he muttered rolling his eyes. “It’s pretty much a sleepy-town out here. With your Galaxy Garrison thing, people are liable to make rumors just to have something interesting to talk about.”

“I’m being completely serious here, James. Something like this would drive half the world into a panic, and we need to be sure that that day will never happen." 

  To James' surprise, Iverson sounded genuinely worried at the prospect of this. But that didn't mean he was going to yield information on Krolia that easily.  

“But _aliens?_ You’re really letting the space stuff get your guys’ heads. Look, as much as we can talk about that possibility, I’m gonna say what I’ve been saying to you from the start. Now listen closely, “I was asleep the whole night and didn’t hear a thing”. You’re taking some rumors and blowing it out of proportion.”

Iverson seemed to size him up with his beady eyes, either for a fight or for a verbal beat down. James decided the later was more likely. 

“I’ve read a file report about you from the higher ups,” he said, letting those words sink in. “‘James Kogane, former firefighter lietenant. Later dispatched due to endangering the lives of his fellow colleagues and nearby civillians’.”

Years ago, James would have reacted bitterly towards information used on him like that. But that was years ago, he had gotten some of his act together and didn’t let words bother him as much as they used to. What he was concerned about was other people’s actions. 

“Fuck, I haven’t heard that since the day I was kicked out.” James said calmly, he still remembered the sting of those words and the reason why he left his previous job. “If this is some kind of sick joke or black mail to try and win me over, you have another thing comin’.”

“We both know that there’s something else out there, James. Something that is too great for either of use to truly comprehend. As far as we know, we could be entering another war.”

“This isn't Star Wars. I’m not gonna be your guinea pig to send out and make peace with aliens that don’t even exist. Hell, we’ve barely even seen what’s outside our solar system,” James frowned, hoping he could annoy Iverson into leaving. “I’m content to live out here alone, away from people like you who only want to use others for your own gain.”

“Alone, huh?” Iverson asked, looking around the room once more. “So I suppose the missing walkie-talkie and extra plate of food was for your lonesome self?”

James tried not to choke on the water he was sipping. He never felt his brain wracking for excuses so quickly before. Usually, he just relied on his natural charm towards others to get him out of trouble. 

“Okay, even I get lonely sometimes, so I set an extra plate for myself if I still get hungry. Beats having to cook twice. Also, I’m pretty sure I lost the other one when I was wanderin’ around the area long time ago. I just keep the other out of sentimental value.” He looked up to Iverson, trying to make the story sound as convincing, “Last thing I got from my old man.”

“I don’t care what your story is, this is already sounding suspicious,” Iverson said and made for the stairs. 

James would have loved to have socked the guy in the face in that moment, but he allowed Iverson to to walk upwards. He hopes Krolia was telepathic, because he was screaming and giving her permission to take Iverson out if it meant keeping herself safe. His heart was hammering as Iverson inspected each room, and found nothing. 

James never felt so thankful for Krolia using whatever alien skill she had to hide. 

“Quite a big house for only one person,” Iverson noted as he checked James' bedroom.

“Was my parent’s. They didn’t want it anymore, so I took it off their hands.” James said, even mentioning his parents still left a sour taste in his mouth. 

“And what about that little shack nearby?” Iverson asked, leaning out the bedroom window and looking at the rickety old thing. 

“I treat it like a storage unit, no good for anything else.” James said, it was partially the truth. 

That was the particular place he was using for his research, but Iverson didn’t need to know that. He was glad that the crash site wasn't too visible from where the window overlooked or else he and Krolia would be fucked.

“You done ransacking this crazy man’s house yet? ‘Cause I’d appreciate it if you leave now and let me have my peace.”

Iverson glared around the bedroom one more time before walking out down the stairs and headed to the front doors. As James waited for him to get to his destination, the man turned around and handed him a card. 

“If you do find anything unusual, you give the Garrison a call. Understood?”

“Yessir,” James said, taking the card followed by a half-hearted salute. 

Iverson grabbed the doorknob beforespeaking up. 

“The Garrison, no, the world could use a man like you, Kogane. Think about it.”

“Sure, when hell freezes over or you guys actually give me proof that aliens exist. I think I’ve done enough with putting out fires” James replied, “Now, get the hell outta my house and don’t show up here ever again.”

“You’re wasting your talent and your life out here, but I guess I don’t need to be the one to tell you that.” Iverson gave him one last glare, opening the door and slamming it behind his back. 

After he waited by the window for Iverson’s car to disappear among the horizon, he dashed back upstairs. James’ first stop was the bedroom where he walked around.

“Krolia? Are you in here?” He asked, his voice dropped in a whisper. “Iverson left, it’s okay for you to come out.”

No response. 

“If you’re here, can you give me some kinda signal? Anything will be fine!”

Still, Krolia was nowhere to be seen. He checked in the tiny closet and space under the bed. She wasn’t there. He doubted she had the ability to turn invisible, but to be sure he grabbed a broomstick and poked around. 

He then checked the bathroom next, she was still alluding him. He tried to calm down and think of where else she could be hiding. The first thought that came was the shed were his research was and so there he ran. 

James had forgotten his previous actions as he grabbed the knob and threw open the door. He felt the familiar chill of a blade at his throat, and he couldn’t believe he was thinking this, but he was really glad to know that the metal was there. 

“I really hope you don’t start turnin’ this into a regular greeting,” he joked as the sharp edge slowly withdrew from his throat.

  He looked down at her, glad to see she was wearing the clothes he got her (even though he realized a bit late that even his smallest size looked baggy on Krolia), and saw a towel in her other hand. Was she planning on using that as in improvised weapon if her knife didn't finish the job?

“Force of habit,” Krolia responded, hissing as she stood up. 

James bent down to support her but she brushed him aside. 

“Krolia, are you-?”

“No need to fill me in on what happened, I heard it all,” she said as she stood up clutching her side. 

“How?” James asked. 

She lifted up the missing walkie-talkie, the other line filled with a slight buzz of static, but he understood. 

“It was the only thing I could grab as they were approaching,” Krolia said, her voice making an accusatory tone towards the human male. “I worried you might have sent that Iverson character over to your home while you were “shopping” as you said.”

James felt a bit hurt that Krolia thought he would abandon their trust that easily, but considered that the other people she met out in space weren’t as benevolent as he was. The last thing he wanted now was for Krolia to think he was going to stab her in the back. He wanted her to feel safe around him, to feel like she didn’t always have to be on her guard. He wanted to help. 

“Look, all that you heard from that is true. I wouldn’t tell the Garrison a thing about you even if they were to attempt to force it out of me.” He said, trying to let her feel the sincerity in his words. “The last thing I want is for you to get hurt because of me.”

“That doesn’t matter. I’m only here for my mission, andwhat that is will remain a secret until I feel that you’ve earned my trust.” Krolia said. 

“…Fair enough,” James admitted. 

She walked passed James, but groaned as she leaned against the doorway. He quietlywalked by her side and gave her a small look. She nodded her head as he put an arm around her waist and helped walk her all the way back to his home. 

“Come on, let’s check your wound and hope you didn’t open it again.”

“I can deal with that,” Krolia grumbled, carefully leaning against James. 

 

* * *

 

The rest of the day was quiet, save for James sifting through all of his groceries and Krolia looking at the books she had picked up from the floor. He wondered if she could even read English, probably just looking at the pictures. Dinner was a simple chicken soup from a can with some chopped vegetables that Krolia seemed to swallow down fine without any harsh side effects, so he could add that to the okay food list. 

At around ten, he grabbed a pillow and blanket from a closet, tossing both items onto the couch. Krolia was sitting at one of the chairs in the dining area, fiddling with something on her suit. When she turned around to see him arranging the pillow she walked over and he held a hand up. 

“No, it’s okay, I’m sleeping here.”

Her eyebrows curved down in confusion. 

“But you have a perfectly functional bed upstairs. Shouldn’t you be the one to sleep there while I take the couch?”

He dusted off his hands before he responded. 

“Nah, I thought it’d be better if you get the bed. I’ve crashed on this thing plenty of times before. I can’t think that sleeping here would be good for your wound. Besides, you can barely fit on this anyway.”

“I can curl up my legs.”

James put both of his hands up as if he were trying to calm a horse. Based off of her strength, it sure felt like it. 

“Just humor me, okay?”

She was either too tired or just agreeable as she slowly backed out of the room and went upstairs into James bedroom. He walked up and watched as she scanned the bed as if trying to see if he was attempting to prank her. She passed her hand over the sheets, sat on the mattress like a test and was silent before turning to James. 

“I don’t think I’ve said this enough but…Thank you, for all of this.”

Her eyes were averted from his, but even he could tell how much this meant for someone as secretive as Krolia. He smiled as he put his hand on the doorknob. 

“No worries. If you need anything, I’m on the other side of the door.” He began to close the door after switching off the light and said one last thing, “Good night.”

Krolia didn’t respond as he gently closed the door all the way, hearing the soft click. He sighed, cricking his neck and pressing his back. He was getting pretty old for someone of his age. He didn’t bother to turn on the radio or television like he usually would, and instead walked outside and went to his shack. The cool air for nice against his neck as he entered the old rickety thing. 

Just like his house, he didn’t bother to lock it, so it was easy for him to swing open the door and step inside. It must have baffled Krolia when she chose to hide out in here to have a door swing open as if saying, “Come right in and rob me of all my secrets!” Not that there was much to write home about inside.

There were some pieces of furniture that he had placed in here for days when he wanted to just delve into his research, like a couch and a makeshift table, which was just a plank of wood held up by bricks. He looked at the data he had of last night when Krolia’s ship had entered the atmosphere. He had been sleeping peacefully that night, that much he told Iverson was true. Even though he was a deep sleeper, the loud crash and subsequent earth shaking woke him up enough for him to fall out of bed and turn the light in his room on. After getting Krolia inside safely, he later walked into his shack to take a few quiet moments to register everything and not have to deal with the fact that freakin’ aliens existed and one was sleepong in his house. 

As he glanced towards the machines he left on, he played with the knobs to calm himself and found a signature from Krolia’s totaled ship that was similar to what he had been listening to all this time. A chill ran through him as he realized that Krolia might be linked to this odd energy he alone had stumbled across, but couldn’t say anything lest he compromise Krolia’s trust or have her slit his throat while he slept. 

He remembered his parents feeling like this place was haunted by  _something_. Being the un-superstitious person he was, he thought they were just being paranoid and were just not used the desert air. Now with Krolia present, he was beginning to wonder if his parents were on to something that he was ignorant enough to brush off. 

On one hand, it was possible that she could help explain all of these weird reading’s he’s been tracking for a while, but on the other it could just be him slowly going crazy for being alone for so long and grabbing at the slimmest thing that seemed out of the ordinary to obsess over. He could easily imagine her dismissing it as the second point and sighed. He was so desperate to ask her about her mission, but he had promised to not prod into anything she didn’t want to speak about. All he could do now was stew in his thoughts as he tried to pick up the weird signal again. 

It was a strange thing, like something trying to send out a message. The highest reaction he had ever gotten was when Krolia arrived on earth the night before. Now, he barely got a line going. It was like that sometimes; some days he got a good signal, some days, there was barely anything. He sighed as he listened, adjusting the knobs every now and then trying to find the few things that kept him sane this far out in the desert. As he ran a hand over his face he couldn’t help but feel a bit frustrated. This was gonna be another one of those long nights. 

 

* * *

 

The first few doboshes in James’ bed weren’t that bad. It was comfortable enough and she could just pretend she was back in her own sleeping quarters after a mission if she also ignored his smell. What separated the illusion was that there was a window letting in moonlight, next to her side was a lamp on a table but after that, not much furnished the room. She wondered if James wasn’t that materialistic even before he moved out to this desert. Krolia attempted to not think too much and make herself sleep, but after the day’s events, her body was humming. 

She tried breathing exercises, and then tossing and turning, but she couldn’t sleep. Her mind wandered to the Voltron lion rumored to be here and began to worry.

Worry. A day almost passed on a strange planet that she was probably marooned on, and she was breaking down enough to _worry_? 

_What would Kolivan think if he saw me like this?_ She wondered, imagining her leader’s stern face and equally stern voice hammering into her that the Blade’s should put the mission above their own feelings. 

_I wonder if he’ll be able to receive the message? S_ he thought next, letting her mind wander. _Will he be relieved, or realize I was sent on a fool’s mission based off of little information and faulty rumors? But we confirmed a similar reading from the Red lion’s quintessence that another like it was on Earth. If that’s the case_ ** _where_** _do I even start looking? How could I find a signal out in this wide desert?_

She growled in frustration, turning on her uninjured side one last time, trying to stop thinking. It was hard not to run through the thoughts in her head given the circumstances.

_I can worry about consequences tomorrow, right now, I need sleep if I’m going to get my ship repaired._ She reasoned. 

This seemed to satisfy her restlessness as she felt her whole body become heavy and soon, she had drifted off to sleep. She greeted the feeling, grateful at finally being allowed some respite.

Yet even in her dreams, there was no rest for the weary. 

The only problem was, she wasn’t sure where she was. It wasn’t with the Blades, the empire, or even anywhere else she had previously explored. She could hear something around her, something rushing. It wasn’t charging feet, but something else. She wasn’t sure if she had the right words to describe. 

She struggled to open her eyes, it felt so heavy, like her body was telling her to rely on her other senses than with what she wanted to see. Once she managed to open her eyes, she was surrounded by blue light. She waved her hand through the streams that passed her experimentally, and her body moved slowly like she was being weighed down by something. The Galra looked around, but couldn’t find anything worth investigating. 

Then, she heard… _something_ … She strained her ears to catch the sound again. Maybe she was hearing distant thunder? No, it was something entirely different.

A roar? Why would she be dreaming about a creature roaring at her? She tensed her body and looked around for the source. The only problem was that it seemed to be everywhere. An invisible being stalking her around as she blindly looked this way and that. 

“Who are you?” She called as the growling noise began to slowly grow. “What do you want with me?”

The roaring intensified as a blinding white light flashed in front of Krolia and she put her arms up in front of her eyes in instinct. Whatever she was dreaming, it was too overwhelming for her to truly comprehend. 

The next thing she knew, she jolted awake, grasping the blanket between her sharp nails. The sound was all around in the shack, and she immediately feared the worst. Was it the Galra? Were those Garrison people back?  
She stood up, grabbed her knife and bolted out the door, holding it ready. She walked out to where the source was and what she saw made her instantly confused. 

“Oh, Krolia, you’re up?” James yelled as he slammed a fist on top of one of his machines that was making the roaring sound. 

It was jolting side to side like it was doing some weird dance whilst making the loud sound. Krolia wanted to ask if he had a creature stored in there and if it was trying to get out. 

“Sorry if I woke you! I was trying to do some laundry and the washing machine does this sometimes, don’t worry! I’ll get it fixed soon… probably!” 

Krolia blinked, and tried to pretend she wasn’t annoyed by the fact that _this_ was what woke her up. She probably looked ridiculous to him too, wearing a slightly oversized shirt and long pants, holding a knife up like someone was planning on robbing her. But when she got her bearing, what she assumed was part of her dream didn’t make any sense. 

“I thought I heard a roar,” she said, and James looked at her with his eyebrow lifted up. 

“What?” He shouted. 

“Never mind!” Krolia said, walking to the bathroom and closing the door behind her, hoping that would drown out the noise. 

At this point of the morning, she was already prepared to write off her dream as nothing more than outside noise. Yet as she splashed water over her face to wake her up, and watched as the cool liquid ran through her calloused fingers, something in her gut was telling her that that wasn’t the reason why the dream had occurred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dudes, I can't believe that Keith's dad was a firefighter. I'm going to try and have a regular schedule for this fic, but I can't make any promise.  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	4. Friend in Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James helps Krolia adjust to her new life out int he desert as well as assisting in repairing her ship. However, the two are still on odd terms, unsure if they can truly trust the other.

Days had passed as the two were trying to get used to the other. Krolia refused to sit still despite her injury and James’ protests, leading to some loud yelling and a lot of bargaining on Krolia’s part.

They agreed on the conditions and settled into a kind of routine while Krolia recovered. Every morning she would wake up, just as James had finished making breakfast, and each day she would try more of the foods to see if she could stomach it. So far, nothing made her sick, and she particularly enjoyed the fruits he would get. 

“What are these called?” She’d ask, holding up a fruit slice he had cut for her between her fingers and examined it closely. 

“That’s called a lemon. It’s kinda sour, so be careful.”

James was too busy juicing the other lemons that he hadn’t sliced up to really pay attention to her. 

Krolia stared at it for a moment longer before tentatively smelling it and then taking a small bite of the fruits flesh. James turned at the right moment to see her face scrunch up with a mixture of emotions as the flavor hit her tongue. He tried desperately to not to laugh aloud and pretended to duck down and look for a towel. When he later offered her some lemon juice, he had to explain that he sweetened it after looking at her disgusted face. 

Afterwards, she would say she was going out to repair her ship, and James would insist on coming along, pointing out that he could carry more stuff on his speeder and that Krolia still needed to take it easy. She would grumble under her breath, but let him come along.

When they flew over to the ship, Krolia immediately set to work, trying to weld pieces back together while running system checkups. James handed her tools every now and then, but honestly, he just stood to the side and watched. He couldn’t treat her ship like his speeder, so he left it for her to do the work. Then when it got late, they’d head back to his house, eat, rest, rinse and repeat. 

The times when they did share a semblance of a conversation, it was usually about mundane subjects, such as Krolia asking about the food, earth culture or something that wouldn’t pertain to her mission. He would ask the same and get varying responses, with Krolia either answering with short gruff words or giving him a summary. 

What he did find out was that the Galra Empire’s leader Emperor Zarkon had conquered most of the universe in his ten-thousand year reign (he wondered if it was natural for Krolia’s species to live that long) and was in a desperate search for something. Whatever that thing was, Krolia refused to say, instead giving him a glare that he decided meant, “Secret mission things, ask anymore and I will kick you out of your own house”. 

Despite what little he got out of this relationship, James had to admit that he actually enjoyed the company. It was like having a weird roommate who’s usually gone when he was home, and only appeared for meals before disappearing again. He could barely remember the last time he had someone around him to just talk about things instead of staring at the TV everyday listening to reporters or whatever channel that happened to interest him that day. He missed having an actual person to talk to. 

(Well, alien, but right now there wasn’t much of a difference.)

There were still a lot of things he didn’t know about Krolia, and at times, he sometimes wondered if they were both better off not knowing much about the other. 

 

* * *

 

However, after at least two weeks of this routine, he saw Krolia’s growing frustration begin to overflow when the ship wouldn’t cooperate the way she wanted it to. On one day in particular when he had flown to the house to grab some more water, he returned to find her with her knife in hand. The ship didn’t look much different, and he tried to tread carefully around this subject. It seemed better than when he first came upon it, but it still looked like crap if he was being honest. The only type of ships that would attempt to fly like this were the ones you were hoping to see break or explode once they were a certain height off of the ground. 

He walked up to her and held out the canteen of water he had gotten, hearing the water slosh around inside as he moved. 

“Here, you’ve been going at that for hours.”

“…I’m not thirsty.”

Despite the shade they had, her whole face was covered in sweat while her arms, hands and pants were coated in either dirt or the ship’s grime. In one hand she was holding her knife, and the other was in a tightly clenched fist. 

“I’ve tried everything I know, and nothing’s working,” she said, gripping her knife tighter. 

“I’m sure something’ll work,” James tried to sound assuring, but the doubt in his voice was still apparent. “Maybe we just need to be patient-“

Something seemed to change in Krolia as she let her blade grow, and then in a blink of an eye, she slashed at the hull of the ship with a small grunt. James yelped as he jumped back in surprise, the ship groaning and then the whole thing fell down like dominos with a heavy screech of metal that sounded too tired trying to remain stitched together. 

“Whoa, what the hell?!” 

Krolia’s eyes were downcast as her ship began to crumble before her eyes, and that both amazed and terrified James. He wanted to approach her again, but didn’t want to get in the sword’s striking range. 

“Um, I’m pretty sure you still need that part of the ship.”

“No,” she said quietly, a look of resignation passed her face. “The ship is irreparable.”

“But-”

“James, this is not something worth arguing over. The ship is broken beyond _anyone’s_ skills to repair. The best thing to do now is to salvage whatever parts I can and make sure nobody finds any traces of its existence.” 

She turned to him, and he knew she wasn’t going to take “no” as an answer.

He looked between her and her now re-destroyed ship. He wasn’t usually that optimistic, but he had hoped that her ship hadn’t sustained enough damage were repairing it was no longer an option. Yet, if this was the reality they were given, then this was the reality they had to face.

“You’re sure there’s no other way?” He asked. “The last thing I want is for you to regret this decision if there were still options left.”

Krolia looked down at her blade as if having a mental conversation with it. After what he’s seen the abilities the sword had, he wouldn’t doubt if that was a possibility. 

“I wouldn’t have done what I did if I wasn’t sure there was no other way.”

He took everything in and looked the alien woman in the eyes.

“Okay. What do you want me to do?”

 

* * *

 

After breaking down the ship into pieces and taking what they needed, they buried the rest. By the time this whole process was done, it was turning to dusk. Krolia gathered her parts into a bag and they both hopped onto his speeder to fly back home. The trip felt more tense compared to all of the other times they came out here.

Once inside, Krolia set the machine parts onto the dining table while James rummaged for something to heat up since his arms ached from all of the shoveling they did. He settled on the frozen pizza he had bought for sale and got the pan ready. As turned the flame on, he put the first slice on and shook the pan around. He looked over his shoulder to Krolia who sat hunched over on the couch, staring at the parts like she could telekinetically put them all together. 

“Hey, you okay?” He asked, as he started to hear the food sizzle.  
“I’m fine,” she replied absent-mindedly.

She was fiddling with the pieces she retrieved, but he wasn’t sure if she was actually trying to make something or just keep her hands busy. He decided not to press anymore and focused on not burning the food. When it was done, he set up two plates and walked over to Krolia holding both in his hands. 

“Here, it’s called pizza,” he said, putting the plate down by her. 

She replied with a small “hmm”. He sat down at the couch with his plate in hand, turning on the small tv and flipped through the channels. About a half an hour later, he looked up from his plate to find that Krolia hadn’t touched her food. She had also stopped working, leaving the pieces scattered across the small wooden surface and staring down at the floor with her hands clasped under her chin. 

“I’m going to sleep,” she said, walking up the stair case to his room and he heard the door close. 

He glanced up at a nearby clock and sighed to himself. 

“Who goes to sleep at eight?”

The joke didn’t make him chuckle, nor did it dispel the heavy atmosphere that Krolia had left behind. It just made him feel even more depressed about this entire situation. 

He tried to distract himself by continuing to channel surf, looking through game shows, documentaries and even the long infomercials. However, as it always does, it became extremely boring, and nothing caught his attention. That may have been due to the fact that he was worrying over Krolia, the downcast look on her face occupying all of his thoughts. Both of them had been hoping they could salvage her ship, but the universe just had to be a huge shit about it.

He decided to turn in as well after eating Krolia’s food and washing off the dishes. He didn’t feel like going back to his research, since he felt that it would just lead into more depressing results. 

After turning off all of the lights, he fell onto the couch and staring up at the ceiling. There should be something else he could do to help her out, whatever that may be. Yet the stalemate between them was the fact that Krolia still had a tightly shut mouth that could spill anything about her mission. The one thing she refuses to talk to him about. Even though they could probably consider each other friends at this point, he still wasn’t at the level of friendship where she would divulge her secrets to him. 

“What now, James?” He asked the air, as if hoping some kind of sign would fall from the sky again. Hopefully, this time it wouldn’t crash near his backyard again. 

The only thing he did seem to get was silence and even more questions. He decided to just sleep on the idea and about a half an hour he literally fell fast asleep. 

 

* * *

 

Krolia couldn’t sleep, again. This time, it was mainly because she had been mentally kicking herself over and over for the past vargas on having a shred of hope that they could repair her ship. Now, she was officially marooned on planet earth with no way of contacting Kolivan, no way of leaving the surface, and seemed destined to live out the rest of her life out in a house with a human far from civilization in the middle of nowhere. The last part didn’t sound too bad, but she was too deep in her misery to truly grasp onto anything positive that she came across. 

Instead of trying to force herself sleep, she decided to get up, grabbing a heavy jacket that was hanging on one of the bedposts and wrapping it around her body. She tip-toed down the stairs and glanced over at James who was snoring lowly on the couch. As she went for the front door, she couldn’t help but notice how much younger he looked when he was resting. She shook her head as she walked towards the door, she needed to get some air _now_. 

After going through the door, she made sure to close it as quietly as possible and sighed. The cool night air brushing against her cheeks making her shiver a little. 

She walked a few feet away from the house and stopped to stare at the sky. Krolia stood there for a while, wondering if she could guess where her home amongst the sea of lights would be located if she tried hard enough. Even though she knew her home was likely galaxies away, it allowed her to imagine a better set of circumstances than her current one. 

It was times like these when she was alone with her thoughts did she realize how small and trivial her problems seemed compared to something as wide as space. The Blades, the empire, none of those things seem to matter much when she looked at the stars. 

She vaguely remembered one of her Galra acquaintances around her station would talk about how some stars were actually long dead, and the only reason they could still see the bright light they emitted was because of the long distance. The light was still traveling the reaches of space, even though its core was long gone. In a field of seemingly endless lights, you would never realize when one speck dies or another is born. 

Krolia crossed her arms together for comfort since the jacket was doing well at keeping her warm, and closed her eyes, inhaling the desert air. It calmed her a bit, but barely. Try as she might, the only invasive thing she had about herself was her thoughts.

_That’s what I am_ , she mused. _A small star amongst a myriad of others. Similar, and insignificant compared to the vast universe. If I were to die, nobody would know, and no one would care even when my light has long been extinguished._

She thought once again of the Blades, her home, her comrades. Things she would likely never get the chance to see for the rest of her living days. While that was still a heavy reality she was trying to accept, she knew that she could still do something here. She opened her eyes and looked at the dark horizon of the desert, taking in how barren everything was from where they were. There was still the Blue Lion. 

Krolia was afraid to grasp for the sliver of hope that may not actually exist, but she shook her head. This was the last thing she could still do, she can still finish the mission. A small gust of wind picked up and she shivered again, deciding it was now time to head back inside, not sure how long she actually spent standing and staring. 

When she walked back in, she nearly jumped at the sound of a soft thud and looked to see that it was just James’ hand hitting the side of the couch. Most of his blanket was dipping off of his body, pooling towards the floor. She paused for a moment before approaching him, adjusting his blanket and then snuck back into the bedroom. As she slipped back into the covers, she tried not to think of anything but sleep. 

 

* * *

 

“Wanna go flying?” James asked after they had eaten their lunch. 

“What?” Krolia asked, looking up from her work that looked half-assembled into whatever machine she was trying to make, her suit laying next to her, folded up neatly. 

She had been even quieter this morning, settling onto the couch for what seemed like hours in front of the tv. Krolia was looking through the channels the same way one would use tv to let their eyes turn glassy, allowing them to let their minds wander, and not actually watching for the content they were showing.

“Just, do you want to go flying on my speeder? I do that to help clear my mind sometimes. That, or if I’m not feelin’ my best, I just go for a spin and it cheers the hell outta me.”

“Haven’t we done that enough for the past couple of weeks?” She asked, using her knife to slice the metal as easily as one would whittle wood. 

“Yeah, but this times gonna be different.”

She looked up incredulously. “How?”

“ ‘Cause this time, we’re doing it for fun and not for anything serious.”

“I thought you said that you wanted to conserve energy for your speeder since it’s so expensive?”

  
“Don’t go usin’ my own words against me,” James said. “Come on, it would be good for you, wouldn’t it? Just give yourself a break for today.”

Krolia glanced down at her parts and sighed deeply. He grinned as he watched her drop all of her tools and stood up to stretch. 

“Fine, just for today.”

They waited an hour before getting on the speeder and James flew them across the desert lands. At first, Krolia just sat in the back not saying anything, but once James stopped and asked her if she wanted to try and fly it, her face softened for the first time that day. Or as soft as she was able to get in this kind of situation.

“You drive it too slow,” Krolia grumbled as he stopped for a moment to let his adrenaline die down.  
“Well it isn’t one of your alien ships, but I think I know how to go fast on a speeder I take care of.”

“You’re not pushing it enough.”

“Oh, so would you care to enlighten me on how to control it then?” James asked as she moved aside and gestured to the controls. 

“You… want me to actually drive your speeder? You’re not afraid I’ll break it?”

“No, I’m just afraid you’re intimidated by my skills as a pilot-“

“Move,” Krolia said, pushing James behind her as she grasped the controls.

He gave her a brief instruction on the controls, where the accelerator was and how to brake. Then they were off. The two of them screamed and whopped with ecstasy as they took turns seeing who could make the sharpest turns, who could weave around the rock junctures sticking out of the ground, to trying to get the other to grab the driver in support and laugh as the pure thrill of it all rushed through their bodies. 

The two of them went at this for about two hours before they returned to the house, James plopping down against the trees trunk while Krolia leaned on the side a few inches away from James. After all of that rush, he was tired. 

“Maybe the next time we do that, we should probably get some helmets,” he giggled, brushing at his hair . “Haven’t had that much fun since my friend and I borrowed their dad’s car and drove ‘round town.” 

“You did what?” Krolia asked, her shoulders at ease and sounding eager to listen to James’ story. “By driving, I hope that doesn’t mean going at the highest speed possible to turn corners like we did today.”

“Ah, we just nabbed his keys for a bit, got in the car, drove around just a bit above the speed limit, and may have just avoided the cops. Don’t look at me like that, you probably did a lot of stupid thing when you were younger.”

“I wasn’t stupid enough to attempt to steal something and get caught in the process.”

“We returned the car and keys later, so technically, it wasn’t stealin’,” James grumbled, but was glad the two of them were more open than before. “You had fun today, right?”

Krolia looked down at his sincere expression, thinking about her answer before nodding. 

“Yes, I did.”

He nodded at the response and shut his eyes, thankful for the shade. 

   "I hope this at least makes us friends now?"

  Krolia paused as if seriously considering this statement. 

   "I do find you more tolerable than when I first met you," she admitted, teasing him gently. "If that is what makes us 'friends', then I have no complaints. Don't expect much"  


“I’m glad,” James said with a smile and leaned back against the tree. "I'll just take that as nicely-wrapped compliment."

  "This is the most you'll get out of me for now."

  "Well, I'll certainly take something over nothin'."   


They both soon settled into a comfortable silence, letting what little wind brush against the trees leaves and causing the branches to rustle. It had been so long since they finally settled into that peaceful feeling of bliss. Yes, this had been a fun day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try and upload new chapters either on Mondays, or Saturdays. I'm going to see if I can keep this a weekly series.  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	5. Bonding Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krolia has come to slowly accept earth as her new home, and James ends up getting more than what he bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Slight trigger warning for this chapter.  
> A description of being stabbed starting at "Her voice was harshly cut off when she felt a stabbing pain in her side," and it is okay to read at "Kolivan loomed over her".  
> Krolia has a small anxiety/panic attack in her dream, around, "Krolia felt her breath coming out in short huffs" it's safe to read at "Suddenly, fire began to spread around her".  
> The panic/anxiety attack is based off of a personal experience I've had.

Krolia spun her knife in her hand without much thought, letting the the familiar weight of metal dance across her fingers. After a few more spins, she grabbed the hilt and then hurled it at the fence, hitting a post dead center. She needed this. Today marked an entire month she was stuck on Earth, a thought that was becoming less and less wearisome as the days went by. She had made peace with the fact that she could no longer return to her home, and was slowly allowing herself to adopt Earth as her new one. 

Her thoughts were cut off when she heard someone clearing their throat. Krolia turned around to see James standing behind her at the steps of the house, giving her a somewhat disapproving look.

“You know, if you want to practice your knife throwin’, could you not do it at my fence?” James asked, walking out from the house with his hands in his pockets. 

“What’s wrong with that? The house is obviously out of question. You also didn’t want me harming the tree over there-“

“Hey, that’s been standin’ there since I was a kid,” James said defensively.

“As you once said, no one ever comes out here, so what use is the fence?” Krolia asked. James rolled his eyes as Krolia walked over to the pieces of wood stabbed into the earth to pull the gleaming knife out. She used the sleeve of the grey t-shirt she was borrowing to wipe the sweat from her forehead, wondering how humans made such comfortable clothes. 

“I guess it helps keep out some animals? But that’s not the point. The real question is: why are you even doin’ this?” James asked. 

“My wound has healed enough where I can move without my side bursting into pain, going at this rate, I should heal enough to be a scar and nothing entirely life-threatening” Krolia said, spinning the knife in her hand again. “I’ve spent almost a month recovering, so I need to make sure I stay in shape and don’t get rusty. Normally, I’d have drones or other people to train with, but I’ll make do with what I have here.”

“Technically, you were moving for longer than that.” He lifted an eyebrow when Krolia gave him a look that told him to shut up. “Well, if it would stop you from demolishin’ my fence, I’ll spar with you.”

Krolia eyed him from head to toe as if she thought he was joking. 

“I’m serious.”

Another pause, and Krolia stared at the human harder.

“You?”

“You see anyone else voulnteerin’?” James asked, gesturing to the nonexistent audience. 

“I doubt you’ve been in an actual fight,” Krolia said, betraying her usual stoicism as she smirked. “Most of you humans don’t seem like the type who readily jumps into conflict.”

“Well, where did you think I got this?” James pointed to the scar on his right eyebrow. 

“I wouldn’t know. I just assumed that was part of your roguish charm, or you accidentally clipped yourself when trying to trim that area of your face.”

“Ha, ha, you’re hilarious,” James rolled his eyes but paused when he realized something. “Wait, did you just _joke_?”

“I’m more worried that if we spar, all of the rest and relaxing you’re telling me to get will end up describing your condition,” Krolia said, avoiding his question. “In my time with my fellow Blade members, I’ve taken on Galrans at least larger than yourself.”

“Hey,” James raised his fists in what Krolia recognized as a defensive stance. “I may not look it, but I was pretty tough back in the day. I could knock out a guy with a good punch.”

Krolia did another quick glance over James’ body before giving him a teasing grin, “I highly doubt that.”

Despite her being at least a head shorter than James, even he felt a little afraid to go up against her. Her body was lithe and agile, and going off what little she told him about her training with the group she called the “Blades”, her moves weren’t just for show. Still, he was feeling cocky today, and he might as well see how he would match up to an alien assassin woman from space.  
“Don’t believe me? Come on, bring it.”

Krolia shook her head in slight dismay, sheathing her knife and picking up a nearby stick that was the length of her arm and just as thick. Grabbing it with both hands and with a deft twist of her wrists, she broke the piece of wood into two smaller pieces .

“I want this to be a fair fight,” she said as she approached James and attempted handed him one of the pieces. 

“I’ll be fine without a fancy tool.”

She shrugged, tossing the other piece aside while the one she kept was twirled as naturally as one would flip a pen or pencil between their fingers. Krolia walked about ten paces away from James, leaving a good distance between the two, where either one could make the first move. 

“Last chance,” she warned, as she stopped twirling her makeshift knife. 

“I’m good unless you wanna back down now,” he hated how he talked more when he was nervous.

He watched her body tense, sizing him up again like a predator finding its prey. Then, like a flash, her eyes seemed to sharpen as she leapt towards him. 

He knew how fast Krolia could move, and it still startled him. She managed to jump from where she stood to where he was, and already snapping her leg out to catch him in the side. James managed to dodge back, and tried to get a quick jab in with his right fist. 

She easily ducked, taking advantage of his momentum. She grasped his arm and without mercy, used her weight to toss him to the dusty desert ground below. He landed with a thud, a breath of air pushed out of his body, and pain bursted in so many different places, he began to worry that Krolia had done some serious damage. James took a few seconds to recover, groaning in pain as it gave Krolia enough time to point the wood at his throat. Her grin was even wider now that he had been laid out. 

“Well, you certainly put up a good fight,” she said, stepping back to allow James the chance to catch his breath. 

James moaned as he tried to sit up, rubbing his bruised skin and grateful that his arm and spine were still intact. 

“… I let you win that.”

“Of course you did,” Krolia’s lips spread into an even broader smile.

“Best two outta three,” James coughed, rubbing at his skin. “That one was a warm up.”

“Oh, so we’re doing rounds now?” Her tone was full of amusement. 

“Wait a sec,” he said, pressing his hands against his backside and stretched. After that exercise was done, he took four steps back and Krolia did the same. 

“Still best two out of three?” She asked. 

“Yup.”

“Not much of a challenge.”

_Just you wait,_ he thought, preparing himself. 

This time, he was the one to make the first move. He feinted a left and tried to jab at her side. Krolia jumped back, spinning the wood in her hand and tried to swipe at his arm. He wished he actually had an actual strategy in his head besides yelling a mix of _shit_ or _fuck_. Right now, he just needed to find a way to get her close (probably not the best plan), but it was all he got. 

She leapt towards him again, but this time instead of swiping at his legs, she tried to topple him over by kicking him. James managed to avoid the swipe as she made to stab him with the stick when her foot didn’t connect. This time, he dodged and grabbed Krolia’s arm, twisted it behind her back and quickly nailed her to the ground. She let out a low growl as she struggled beneath him, but couldn’t do much when he planted his knee on her back. 

“Come on, I won this round,” he said, doing his best to keep her pinned down.

Krolia exhaled slowly, turning her head to the side so he saw the death glare she was giving him. A few seconds later, he saw her allowing her body go limp and James slowly got off her grinning with pride. 

_Alright, I got this_ , James thought. 

Just as he outstretched his hand to help her up, Krolia took her opportunity. She locked her legs onto James’ neck, scissoring him effectively and bringing him down to the ground. He coughed as the dirt blew in his face as he made impact with the ground below him again. 

He almost let out a screech of terror when Krolia loomed over his chest, the piece of wood poking his throat once more, reminding him of the true damage she could do if she weren’t holding back so much. Her grey and purple eyes glared down at him and her face was so close he could feel her breath across his face. He couldn’t tell what was beating faster, the pulse in his neck or his heart telling him to get the hell away from Krolia. 

“Yield,” she commanded in a gravelly tone. 

He had to make his body stop fighting as he tried to relax. Once she was satisfied and finally got off of him, he sighed in defeat. The worst part of this was the fact that he expected mercy coming from someone who's been trained to never show it to their enemies.

“I still won that round,” he said, dusting off his clothes and giving Krolia an accusatory eyeroll. “That, what you did, was cheating.”

“For the Galra, it’s kill or be killed, “Victory or death” we would say. Only when one of us is dead will the battle be over.” She crossed her arms in a way that said, _This is so obvious, even a child should understand this concept._

“It’s not cheating, it’s survival,” Krolia added. “You humans are just too trusting. That or you’re too soft. Metaphorically and literally.” 

It didn’t help that she punctuated those last two words with her wooden knife, lightly jabbing it in James’ general direction. 

“Well, in my old field, I didn’t have to actually deal with a lot of violence against people.” James said, cricking his neck, “Just a lot of fires, injuries and baby deliveries.”

“You still want to give up yet?” Krolia asked, her voice slightly wavering, probably in order for her to catch her breath, or she may have (not) been considering that she should go easy on this floppy flesh-bag. “Or do you think you can win another round?”

James considered these options. Does he risk having more sore spots on his body that he’d have to lug around for the next few days, or does he push his body more? The last time he worked out had become a hazy date, and it seemed like Krolia’s idea of a “day off” consisted of kicking the shit out of anything that had the misfortune of being partnered up with her. 

“I’m not as young as I used to be.” He grumbled mostly to himself, because Krolia made it clear that she was raised on the hard-core belief of “no mercy”. 

“So you’re admitting defeat?”

He knew he shouldn’t bite the bait. He should not be falling for that jab… But he _wanted_ to wipe the smug grin off of the alien woman’s face. A few bruises would be worth it. 

“Fine. Last round, if I win, I get to cook the spicy ramen with extra chili peppers for dinner,” James huffed, shaking himself and loosening his arms. 

He could spot the little twitch in Krolia’s eye and knew that it was because these were one of the few foods she had come to hate. As much as she despised the taste, she’d likely power through the meal just to prove that she was a “hardened warrior”. He thought seeing that would be kind of amusing in its own right. As he stretched, he watched her look at him carefully, weighing her options. 

“If I win,” Krolia said, taking a moment to think before continuing. “I get to have remote privileges for a week.”

James tried not to give away how horrified _that_ particular idea made him feel. 

He didn’t hate the certain shows that Krolia would take an interest in, such as the history channels or nature shows, those were fine. 

However, she would feign innocence when stumbling onto particularly explicit scenes from shows or movies, even going so far as to amp up the volume just to see him squirm in his seat. It wasn’t as uncomfortable when watching those scenes by yourself, because it only becomes awkward when you’re watching it with others; something Krolia knew and was attempting to take full advantage of. 

“…Fine,” he said, holding out his hand to her, steeling himself in case she attempted to judo flip him again. 

Krolia walked up, grinning mischievously and shook his hand. 

“Deal.”

* * *

 

He regretted ever making that bet after Krolia finally switched the channel, and never felt like kicking himself more in his life.

“Why must you torture the person who saved your life?”

“It’s not torture, it’s educational,” Krolia said, her face shining brightly as she flipped through channels. “Don’t you think this is a good way for me to learn about your earth culture through the media you consume the most?”

“I don’t think that’s you’re actual intent, and I’m not off the hook ’til you feel like sleepin’, am I?”

“That’s the plan.” She replied, a smug grin plastered on her face. 

He groaned, thankful she had decided to switch over to the history channel, but he wasn’t sure if he could stand a whole week of this agony. Maybe he could bribe her with food? She really liked the hamburger he made tonight, but does that count as it being her favorite? 

“Any way we can change the deal?”

“You shook on it, you fought for it, you lost it, so I get to have my remote privileges for the week.” She gave him a testy look as she lifted the remote away as if he was going to attempt to wring it out of her hands. “Unless you want to spar for it again?”

“I think I’ve done enough sparrin’ for a bit,” James sighed, getting up to get another mug of water. 

 James opened thr fridge just to check what was inside, and he wondered what they needed for their next shopping trip. He grabbed a pad of paper and a pen after he got his drink and settled back down beside Krolia. He absently listened to the TV as he scribbled down some items like food or parts for his speeder. James didn’t notice until he looked up that Krolia was watching him write. 

“Oh, that’s right, you don’t know English.”

“Is that the language your people use?” She asked, staring at the letters.   
“A majority of us do,” James said. “You want to learn?”

“I might as well,” she sighed. “I don’t have the translator working on my broken helmet, although I might be able to make something small from it later. For now, I’ll just learn it from you this way.”

She watched as his pen moved across the paper, as if committing each letter and stroke to memory. 

“This is how I write my name,” James said, writing out each letter as well as saying it aloud. “J, a, m, e, s.”

He took the pen away and showed the paper to Krolia, who looked at the words and traced each one with tip of her nail following the way he wrote each letter.

“Want to see if I can get your name down?”

“We’ll see,” she said, looking more interested in the process. 

“I’ll give it a shot,” James said, getting his trusty pen ready. “Kr-o-li-a.”

He wrote down the letters that he guessed would be in her name, and then showed it to Krolia once he was done. 

“K, r, o, l, i, a. I think that’s how it would be spelled.”

“Hm,” she replied, doing the same thingshe did with his name, tracing each letter with her nail and mouthing the letters to herself. 

“How would you spell your name, in your language?” James asked, and offered Krolia the pen. 

She quietly took it, and began to slowly write some symbols on the paper that took her at least a half a minute to write. It reminded him of a mixture of different languages but he wasn’t quiet sure which ones he was thinking of. After the final line she handed him back the pad and he looked down at it. 

“That’s how I spell my name.”

James lifted up the paper and stared at the writing. He also wondered if this was the language the aliens out in space used to communicate. 

“Your language definitely looks prettier than mine,” he joked, but Krolia didn’t seem to find any humor in that.  
She handed him the remote and slowly got up, her eyes downcast. He started to worry that maybe he was saying too much when bringing up Krolia’s life in space, but she seemed to catch on to this and gently reassured her human friend. 

“It’s nothing you said, I’m just tired,” she said, giving him a reassuring look as she went to the stairs. “Good night.”

“Night.”

After she left, he started to work on his list again, but couldn’t help feeling like he messed up somewhere. 

* * *

Nightmares. 

These have become more common ever since she crashed onto earth, and she wondered if it was due to the fact that she had very little to do. Unlike up in the Galra ranks or with the Blades, she didn’t have something that would tire her out and allow her blank dreams for the night.  She also wondered if the fact that James reminded her of home so much that the thought stubbornly refused to go away.

It was one of the usual nightmares she’d have, but each time it left her feeling like she had been suffocating. She would be trapped in darkness, blindly looking around for something to grasp onto. When the first light turned on, she was greeted by a body of a Marmoran member. Her body wouldn’t listen to her as it leaned down and gently rolled the Blade member over, revealing their face with no mask. The face was always different, but it always ended up being someone she knew from the Blades. 

This time, it was Bitrux, who sparred with her the most during breaks. Their light blue skin with purple spots looked paler than how she remembered, their eyes were sunken, the irises turned into a milky white and their body was too cold for it to be living. 

“You’ve failed,” she would hear Kolivan say, glaring at her from behind. “You allowed your emotions get the best of you, and compromised the mission. I always knew you were the foolish one, but I never expected you to be this useless.”

“There wasn’t anything else I could do,” Krolia faced her leader as she tried to argue. “If I hadn’t made my choice, the Empire would have-”

Her voice was harshly cut off when she felt a stabbing pain in her side, and she looked down to see her fallen comrade had run their knife through her. Her once dark Galran suit was being slowly stained red and she screamed out in pain as the metal twisted deeper into her body. 

“You’ve betrayed us, sister,” their voice said. 

“No, I didn’t! I was following what I’ve been taught!” Krolia yelled as more hands she couldn’t see latched onto her, adding their own knives to the wounds across her body. Everything hurt, she wanted to scream at them to stop, but the more she tried to speak, the stronger the grips and stabs became.

Kolivan loomed over her now as she was being pulled towards the floor. She tried to grab for her leader, only choking on the black matter matter as her entire body was dragged underneath. It was like being pulled under water.

“No one will grieve your absence,” Kolivan’s voice said, echoing throughout the darkness as she was left weightless. 

It was similar to being tossed out into the void of space, except she knew exactly where she was. Lost in her mind, unable to force herself awake. Here in this world, her thoughts began to slowly override her mind, feeding her all of the negative consequences that could come out of her situation. 

_What if he’s right?_ One part of Krolia’s brain began to say. _I’ve done so much, but to what avail? If more Galra scouts were to come down to earth now, I’d have no back up, no weapons. What if what I’m doing is meaningless? I’m going to die out here without any way of alerting the Blades._

Krolia felt her breath coming out in short huffs and she attempted to calm herself, trying to point out that whatever she was seeing were just thoughts. Merely ideas. They couldn’t really hurt her.

But her lungs began to burn, her throat constricted and her body was being overwhelmed by trepidation. She desperately clamped her hands over her mouth, trying to breathe through her nose as the imaginary panic began to suffocate her. As she inhaled each shaky breath of air, she tried slowly exhaling to clam her shaking body, both sides of her mind trying to overtake the other. 

_Breathe._

__ **_You’re likely to die on this planet, or worse, get killed protecting the one thing capable of stopping the Galra._ **

**__ ** _Breathe…_

__ **_Who cares if you found the Blue Lion? You don’t know where it is, and it’s useless without its pilot._ **

_Just breathe._

__ **_The Galra are going to find it sooner or later. They already have the Red Lion, it’s only a matter of time before they take the blue one._ **

**__ ** _You need to breathe!_

__ **_Zarkon has ruled for over ten-thousand years, what makes you think you can do anything to change that tyrants power?_ **

**__ ** _Please, breathe!!_

__ **_What if this isn’t worth it, and you die for a cause that has already sacrificed thousands just like yourself without a second thought?_ **

**__ ** _Breathe!!_

Suddenly, fire began to spread around her, forcing her to look up and see a Galra ship approaching with its ion cannon aimed towards her. She couldn’t even let out a scream as the beam fired at her. 

* * *

 

Krolia shot up covered in sweat, her hands gripping the sheets tightly beneath her fingers and she managed to take a few gulps of the precious cold air in the room. Why was this happening to her? She was thankful that she was surrounded my a familiar place, but she couldn’t ease the dread she had gotten from that nightmare. 

It hadn’t always been this awful, but today seemed to be one of the worst. When she trailed her hand gently over her skin, she thought she could feel pricks of pain where she had been stabbed by the knives. She sighed as she looked over to what James called a night stand where she kept her knife just out of reach. 

Krolia leaned over and grasped the knife in her hand, weighing the familiar metal across her palm. Her knife always provided her with some comfort after ordeals like these, but as she placed the hilt to her forehead, she wondered if it would still be able to do this if she were to continue having these nightmares. A small suggestion planted itself into her mind, and she didn’t necessarily like it. 

_Who would even agree to something like that?_ The Galran woman thought. Her body was already moving, slipping out of the wrinkled sheets, placing the knife back on the stand, opening the bedroom door and going towards the stairs. 

As Krolia walked down the staircase and she saw James sipping from one of his mugs, the TV squabbling about something she had no interest in. He looked up and noticed her, lowering his mug with a look of surprise on his. 

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” was her only reply. 

He didn’t seem to have heard or noticed how disheveled she looked, which she appreciated. Krolia began to wonder why she thought coming down here to ask him for a favor was a good idea this late at night. 

“It’s nearly one in the mornin’, you only slept for a couple hours. Is somethin’ wrong?” 

“Yes. Actually… I have something to ask of you,” Krolia began. 

“Sure, what is it?” James said this without hesitation, lifting the mug up to his lips. 

It almost made her feel a little guilty that she was asking so much from James, and never gave back the same amount in return. Maybe… she’ll figure out an equivalent exchange later after what she was going to ask. However, now that she had time to really process what she was going to say, she was beginning to regret it. Before she could even change her mind, she decided to just go for it. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, opened them and spoke as clearly as possible. 

“I want you to sleep with me.”

 

Krolia never thought it was possible for liquids to shoot out of someone’s nose. Even back at the Galra headquarters when others would be messing around, she hadn’t come across that kind of phenomenon. 

“Don’t grumble like that. I apologized and I explained what I meant afterwards.” Krolia said, resting on her side of the bed as she stared at the lamp on the night stand.

“Yeah, after I shot water outta my nose, which was plenty painful, thanks.” James said, his voice slightly hoarse, either due to the water, or just because he was annoyed.

In hindsight, she had to admit that James coughing and attempting to clean up the water that spouted out of his nose was going to be an incredibly amusing memory. 

“I don’t understand why you jumped to that kind of kind of context of “sleeping” when I asked.”

James sighed and even with his back to Krolia, she could tell that his face was flushing at having to explain his point of view. 

“Well, the way you said it was rather…” his voice trailed off as he searched for the right term. 

“Ambiguous?”

“Blunt,” James answered. “So I don’t think I would be blamed for thinking you meant somethin' else when you asked me that question.”

“And I said I was sorry for not being more specific.” Krolia shot back, already regretting asking James to share the bed with her. Well, it was _his_ bed to start with, she was just occupying it because he insisted she take it over the couch. 

“Why did this request pop up all of a sudden? I’m really fine with sleeping on the couch and leavin’ the bed to you.”

Should she be truthful here, or give a more grounded reason as to why she wanted her human companion next to her while she slept? She decided that she’ll tell the truth in pieces, depending on his next questions.

  “It didn’t feel right to keep forcing you to sleep on the couch forever, so we might as well share the bed.”

“Thanks for the consideration.”

  Was that a hint of sarcasm in his voice?

“That, and you have a calming presence.”

“I’m sorry, what now?” James asked, and she felt the covers being tugged away from her. She hoped he wasn’t attempting to turn over so he could try and look at her better so he could gauge her reaction.

“If you promise to stop pulling on the blankets, I’ll tell you why I brought you up here,” she grumbled, tugging the cloth back towards her side. 

“I’m all ears,” he said, loosening his grip so she could pull the covers back over herself. 

“I had a nightmare. It’s usually not that bad when I’m really tired from the day, but some nights it just creeps up on me unexpectedly. Sometimes I wake up in a sweat, sometimes I can’t breathe, other times-” she paused, not comfortable enough to share her worst experiences to James, so she dropped it. “The bottom line is, I don’t want to be alone when those times come. You feel like a calm person, so I thought if you were around, I would be able to rest better.”

There was a long pause, giving Krolia enough time to realize how childish she sounded. “ _You feel like a calm person, so I thought if you were around, I would be able to rest better?” Who asks another grown adult this kind of question? Why did all of_ ** _that_** _fall out of my mouth?_

_“_ Oh, thanks?” James’ had turned enough to look over his shoulder to address Krolia’s. “I guess, with you fightin’ in this huge war, of course it kinda messes you up physically, psychologically and mentally. Did you talk to anyone about these things back home?”

“We’re told that are emotions are irrelevant to the mission; any signs of it is said to be a showing of weakness.” Krolia replied, feeling like she was reciting a song she had been taught to the point where it was drilled into her head. “Nothing is more important than completing the mission."

“Seriously?” James asked. “That sounds, extreme. In my force, even they would have us go to therapists after a particularly traumatic event.”

“You’re telling this to a group of Galra rebels who hides one of their bases in-between two black holes.”

“ _You guys can do that?”_

  She never got tired of hearing his flabbergatsed tone of their two vastly different forms of technology.

_“_ I think we’ve done enough of your question game for the night,” Krolia said, trying to hide her amusement from James’ outburst. “I’ll answer more of your pondering thoughts tomorrow, for now just let me sleep.”

“Alright then, good night again,” James said and Krolia heard the sheets shuffle over slightly to his side. 

“Good night.” 

Krolia began to settle back down into the mattress, allowing the warmth from the covers to spread around her body. She hated to admit it, but it felt reassuring having someone laying next to her. Perhaps she could live with this kind of arrangement. 

* * *

 When the morning came, she woke up to find that James had already left the bed and she could smell the food from downstairs. She followed her nose down and saw James flipping something onto a plate that was already stacked with two other slices of whatever food he was making. 

“Mornin’, made some pancakes.” James took the plate and placed it down on the table for her. “The syrup is over on the side and the fruits can be put on top.”

Krolia walked silently to the table and stare at the food, catching bits of steam that was drifting off of the plate and taking up a fork (she was so confused by this utensil when she first used it) and started to poke at her breakfast. She wasn’t sure how to address last nights situation. 

“Not hungry?” James asked as he put down his own plate and sat across from Krolia. 

“It’s not that,” Krolia said, cutting off a slice and stuffing it in her mouth. “It’s just, you’ve done so much and what do I give you in return? More work and another person to take care of.”

James opened his mouth, but Krolia immediately interjected.

“Don’t even _think_ about saying it can’t be helped since my circumstances lead me here.”

James replied by putting more pancake in his mouth. Krolia continued to eat a little more before pursuing her proposal. 

“There must be something you want from me. I know you’re a very kind person, but it doesn’t sit well with me that I’ve given nothing back in exchange for all that you’ve given to me.”

“So… you feel indebted to me?”

“More or less,” Krolia sighed as she dropped “blue berries” onto her pancakes. Humans had an odd thing for naming some of their foods after colors, although she couldn’t deny that it fit. “Just name something, and I’ll see what I can do.”

James started spinning his fruits in the syrup, drawing thoughtless patters onto the empty plate. She watched his eyes move back and forth as he seemed to be going through the things in his mind. Krolia tried to guess what he could possibly come up with.

  Tell him more about the Galra and Blades? Have her help him with the speeder? Fix the house? Teach him the language she used?

“I have been doing some research on some strange readings I’ve been receiving out here for years. I’ve never really gotten a good grasp of it, and so far, the only thing I can show you are the sound-waves.”

Krolia wiped the sticky syrup off the corner of her mouth, and got a little annoyed when it left a thin trail of amber connecting her thumb to her lip as she pulled away. 

“How do you know that it’s not a magnetic pole or some kind of radiation? It’s also possible that you could have picked up a stray radio signal from one of your human establishments.”

“That’s what I’ve thought for a while, but I’ve compared it to those things, and what I’ve found is _nothing_ that anything on earth has discovered,” He smiled at this bit of information. “I wouldn’t be asking you to help me on this project if I wasn’t absolutely certain that these readings were something I could easily find anywhere on this planet.”

“So you want me to help you distinguish these, weird wave readings? That’s it?” 

“Well, it’s a weird out of this world thing that no one else seems to have stumbled across, thought it was right up your alley.” James took a sip from one of his mugs that smelled like coffee (Krolia didn’t really mind the bitterness) and his tone changed, “I meant no offense by that.”

“None taken,” Krolia admitted. “This wasn’t the kind of offer I had in mind, but I guess I’ll go with it.”

“Great, after you’re done eatin’, we’ll clean up and head over to my shack. That’s where I keep most of my research.”

_That explains some things_ , Krolia thought as she wiped her plate of food and walked over to the sink to wash it. James soon came by to wash his as well and wiped his hands over a towel. 

“Time to go investigate some possible alien readings.”

They both walked outside, the temperature was a little warm for the morning, but Krolia was slowly getting used to the deserts weather. 

“If all of your important information is stored in the shack, shouldn’t you keep it locked?” Krolia asked as they walked towards the shack. 

“Same reason as to why I don’t lock my house door; no one comes out here, so what’s the point of locking up if no one knows I live out here?”

“I suppose your recklessness was good for the both of us. Had you locked it, I don’t think I would be standing here today.” Krolia couldn’t help but let out a bit of sarcasm drip into her words, but James either ignored it or just rolled with it. 

“See?” James said as he walked up the steps and opened the creaking wooden door. 

Krolia followed him inside, getting a better look at the shack now that she wasn’t just using it as a place to hide. It was almost as barren as the rooms in the larger house, save for a few extra boxes on the floor, klygargs stacked on top of one another and pushed up against the wall with minimum pieces of furniture covering the rest of the room. Well, when she said furniture, she meant pieces of wood being held up by bricks and a couch that seemed to be secondhand items. Compared to where James actually lived, the shack seemed incredibly lonely. 

_Perhaps he’s a minimalist?_ Krolia was beginning to consider that this was a likely possibility.

“Wanna look around?” James asked after pulling up the makeshift curtains and went to his klygargs. “It’s gonna take me a couple minutes to find the sound waves again.”

“Sure,” Krolia replied and walked over to the “books” strewn across the floor. 

  It was still odd how primative the humans way of recording things was, and she was still wrapping her head around it. She picked one up and flipped through the contents, recognizing some of the letters James had showed her the night before, but the rest looked like lines of code. Long and eye straining. She was looking at the images of charts for some time before James called her over. 

“Alright, I think I got it.” 

As she approached the klygargs, she listened closely to the sound waves and frowned, leaving James off to the side to wait on her verdict. She cocked her head to the side, leaning forward and trying to listen so hard that her brows were knit down in heavy concentration. 

“Don’t you have any way for one of these machines to write down these signals?”

“Been trying to work on one of those for a while, but it’s not that easy,” James replied.

Krolia was about to make some comment back when something clicked in her mind. This sounded familiar. Too familiar. But, what were the odds?

As great as crashing onto this very planet the weapon was hidden on, followed by happening to be in the particular squad that stumbled onto a similar reading. 

“Where’s the volume on this?” 

James leaned over and turned the largest knob on the machine. 

“Here, he said. “Kinda weird, isn’t it? I’ve been picking up these signals ever since I moved out here, and it’s like something’s trying to reach out.”

“Can you tell me how long you’ve been hearing this signal?” Krolia felt her pulse increase. 

“Um… I dunno. I guess it’s been about four years? I actually think my parents could have been sensin’ something weird out here since forever and- wait, where’re you goin’?”

“I’ll be back in a tick,” Krolia said and ran out of the shack to find her suit. 

Once she located it, she pulled off the gauntlet, checked the bits of data she had stored on there. She pulled up the wavelengths the empire had of the Red Lion and listened to it as closely as possible and watched the waves rise and drop following the noise. It sounded similar to what she heard in the shack, but she wasn’t entirely sure. 

James heard her come back in, and saw her face lightly covered in sweat. Whether or not that was from exertion or fear, he wasn’t going to delve into at the moment. 

“What do you need your technology thing for? Are these readings connected to your Galra stuff?” 

“Something like that. I need to get a recording of the sound waves you’ve been receiving.”

Without too many questions, he allowed her near his radio and tuned it to the sounds he’s been hearing. He watched as Krolia lifted up her gauntlet, recording the sound waves on a red colored holoscreen, her eyes focused on the information she was gathering. After she seemed satisfied, she held it out for James to inspect. 

“So, we gonna talk about why you suddenly felt the need to get the recording of this sound in particular?” James asked curiously. “I was kinda joking when I asked if it had somethin’ to do with your Galra stuff.”

She pursed her lips, clearly in turmoil before she spoke up again. 

“These readings that you’ve been picking up… are the reasons why I landed on Earth. I suppose for you humans, these would just seem like odd radio signals, but it’s really something more than that."

  She glanced up to gauge James' expression. They've come this far, she felt that she could tell him this much. He also didn't seem like he would accuse her of joking. She looked back down at the signal, her heart beating fast. 

  "What you see here, what these waves represent, is a weapon. One that is powerful enough to destroy Zarkon, and if my estimation is correct, it’s hiding somewhere in this desert.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bitrux isn't actually related to Krolia, but it seems like the Blades address their comrades as brother/sister, like the Galra who helped Keith and his group during the Kral Zera.  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	6. Assembly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of info dumping by Krolia, and James takes the first human option to dealing with the situation. Also, he needs to find a better way to read Krolia.

It was so much easier to regurgitate the information she knew about Voltron, at least that way, she didn’t have to think too much on what she didn’t know. She gave him the general legend of how Voltron came to be, and why this great weapon was separated across the corners of the universe. As she explained how Sendak had found the Red Lion and allowed them to copy the quintessence of it to locate the other lions of Voltron she had also given James a small run down of the Blades and what they stood for. 

  “I was then chosen with other Blade members to be planted amongst the scouts that were searching for the lions. It was the only thing we could do that would be able to keep another lion out of Zarkon’s grasp. After months of searching, we happened upon earth, and you already know the rest.”

James went from standing still, nodding his head to each bit of information, to finally falling onto the couchafter Krolia had finished her story. His hands were clasped in front of his mouth, and his eyes were trained to the floor in a way one would aimlessly stare at a wall.

Krolia wasn’t trying to time his reaction, but when he didn’t make any signs of replying, she started to get a little worried. She was used to him not saying much, but when he was quiet for an extended period of time, that’s when the atmosphere started feeling a little uneasy. 

After all of those revelations, of course it would be a lot to stomach, especially for one person. What was she expecting, applause for her honesty?

“Are you feeling alright?” She asked and James gave her a short nod. It felt a bit odd that _she_ was the one asking if her companion wasn’t currently about to faint. 

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine,” he muttered, running his hands over his face. “Just tryin’ to get over the fact that I’ve been receiving signals from a sentient extraterrestrial ship hidden on my planet that not even the Garrison is aware of. No big deal. I'm totally not freakin' out right now.”

“You’re certainly taking it better than how I would have expected anyone to hear about Voltron being real.”

“What would that have been?”

  Krolia crossed her arms and was appalled to feel a bit ashamed when she admitted this to James. 

“Saying something on the lines of me being a liar.”

“After everything we’ve been through? Calling you a liar was the furthest thought from my mind.”

Krolia smiled at this. It was nice to have this kind of trust from James, she was never really allowed this kind of freedom when working under the Galra. If you ever made a friend, it was usually to form alliances, to be acquainted to someone on the basis of friendship was strenuous once you were up higher than a foot soldier. 

“I never thought it would be possible to find another Voltron lion so soon, and on earth of all places.” She added, she had hoped that it would be years, not months to find another lion. 

“What are the odds?” James agreed. “Why are all the mysterious items, sources, or weapons that people want always gotta end up on earth?”

“They do?” Krolia asked in confusion. 

“They do in movies and tv shows,” James answered. “Well, what do we do now?”

“Right now, we need to trace down the source of the quintessence of the lion, and then we’ll have to search for it to find its exact location.”

“Quintessence?”

“It’s the energy of every living thing in the universe. Each quintessence is a little different, the lion’s especially, which is how we’re able to track them down.”

“Huh,” James rubbed a hand over his face again, trying to get his head to clear. “Pretty sure I heard about somethin’ like that in my science classes.”

He tilted his head forward so he could address Krolia clearly. 

“I have an idea why, but how come you didn’t tell me all this stuff sooner?”

“I didn’t think you would believe me even if I told you my entire mission the day after we met. Besides, the Blade trained us to reveal no secrets… and yet here I am contradicting that order and doing exactly what I’m not supposed to.”

  She could clearly see Kolivan yelling at her from galaxies away about giving away information about the fact that their organization even existed. As she imagined this scenario, James eyed Krolia before he decided to speak. The next steps he needed to tread had to be careful if he wanted Krolia to not call him crazy. 

“Now, what I’m about to say, try and understand where I’m coming from when I say this,” he got a small nod, which was a good of an answer as he was likely to get from her. 

“Somethin’ this big, don’t you think… well, if it concerns the wellbeing of the whole earth, wouldn’t it be better if we contacted the Garrison about this? Think about it. They have better technology than I’m ever likely to possess in my lifetime or with my current salary. They _know_ about you guys, or at least have a better inklin’ than most normal civilians do. I’m just throwin’ that out as a suggestion.”   
He had to quickly get the last sentence out as he watched Krolia’s expression go from calm to defensive. 

“You have got to be joking,” Krolia crossed her arms and frowned deeply. "Barely a month ago one of the people working for the Garrison talked to you like they were trying to hide everything about my ship crashing onto your planet. So you decide it's good to ask  _them_ for help?"  


“I’m not saying I like the idea, I really don’t. However, if we get the government on our side, we might stand a better chance at finding this machine you’re desperately searching for.” 

“We can’t allow your human government to get involved in this, the less they know, the better off they are.”

“So they should remain ignorant about a war that’s going on outside our galaxy that has been raging on for over ten thousand years, and that one of the weapons that could stop it is laying out in their backyard?”

  Krolia considered herself a fairly calm person, but this argument was starting to annoy her greatly.

“Have you considered the fact that your entire species could be thrown into chaos if they ever hear about this? There may be those who will listen and want to help, but I suspect the majority of you will be throwing riots or be terrified out of their minds to really do anything. That, or others will just deny that whatever we reveal exists without solid evidence, even if we present it.”

James sighed as he leaned back on the couch, his chin facing Krolia and his face staring up at the ceiling. 

“I know it’s a possibility, and I’m just tryin’ to think positive. I would hope that at this day and age we’d be more accepting of these things. Hell, we humas are infamous for being stubborn about beliefs, but I’m not sure if much has really changed.” After trying to imagine drawings of the cracks in the ceiling, he looked back at Krolia appearing exhausted from the conversation. “I get why you wanna be cautious, I do. It’s just, I thought it would make our lives a little easier if we had more outside help.”

“Outside help is a rare thing nowadays. There’s a reason why people like the Blades have kept themselves hidden from others for so long. Even though we would be labeled rebels, how many others will actually call for our help once they realize we look like the people who have enslaved their kind for generations? How much outside help would we get if we reveal all of our bases and operations? Who would trust us once they find out how much we've hidden for the greater good?” 

James sighed again as he leaned forward and rubbed his hands over his eyes. Krolia waited for him to speak again but instead, he stood up and walked out the door. 

“Where are you going?” 

“I need an actual drink.”

  "You had breakfast almost an hour ago!"

  James waved his hand and didn't bother arguing over that jab. His brain felt fried after everything Korlia told himz That's what the alchohol is supposed to fix.

* * *

 

The one beer bottle he had in the fridge managed to do the trick, and he felt a little more relaxed about the whole situation. 

  He wished he was as calm as he appeared to Krolia, but the fact was, he was loosing his goddamn mind and couldn’t exactly walk out to the desert, find a secluded spot and scream his worries away. He didn't need rumors of wandering spirits spreading throughout the town. 

  He heard the wood on his porch creak and Krolia walked in. She stopped a few feet away from the counter, her eyes their usual cool and calculating.

“Feeling better?”

“Much,” James said, taking another swig of the beer before offering the bottle to Krolia who looked at it with confusion. “It’s beer. An alcohol? Drink you have when you just wanna relax?”

“No thanks,” Krolia didn’t feel like getting drunk. 

  The one time she did, she hated the feeling afterwards. She felt like killing every other person who had stumbled upon her. It took her hours to get back to what she considered "normal", which was quietly doing her work whilst keeping other's at more than an arm's distance. 

She watched as James shrugged and took another gulp from the brown bottle. 

“What do we do now?” He asked, wiping the water droplets from the cool bootle onto his shirt.

“Tracing the location of the quintessence reading should be our number one priority." 

  _Ugh_ , she was really beginning to sound like Kolivan.  She racked her brain for a question and posed it to James, hoping to just get it out of her mind and clear up space. 

  "What I don’t understand was why the Blue lion chose your planet to hide in. There are thousands of other water-based planets to inhabit, so why Earth? I don’t think its pilot was the one who made the distinct choice.”   
“If it came here ten-thousand years ago, maybe that was when Earth was like, eighty-percent ocean?”

James looked over to Krolia who looked like she was remembering something uncomfortable. 

“That could explain my dream,” she said, and looked embarrassed that she said that out loud once she caught James looking up at her.

“What dream?” James asked, “It wasn’t from last night, I hope.”

“No, it happened on the second night that I was here. I saw a blue light and heard something like a growl. I thought it was just an odd vision or I had a mild concussion from the crash,” she felt her skin crawl as she left her thought go further. “I guess the blue light was actually your earth's ocean? But wonder what was the Blue Lion trying to tell me?”

“Pretty vague message.”

“Aren’t all dreams?” Krolia sighed as she sat on one of the dining room chairs. "That's the whole point of them."

“Why do you think the lion tried to contact you?” 

“I’m not entirely sure, maybe I’m just reading too deep into this. All I can tell you is even if we find it, I won't be chosen as its paladin. I highly doubt the lions would want a pilot who's part of the empire that split then apart to begin with. ”

The two of them dropped the conversation, and Krolia stared at the wooden swirls on the table, trying to map out a plan. They now know for certain the Blue lion was in this vicinity, now what they needed to do was pin down the source of the quintessence reading. Maybe she could make a tracker from her gauntlet? It had the information they needed, but the actual signal wasn't the greatest unless she was standing directly next to something. 

“You tryin’ to figure out our next move, huh?” James set the now empty bottle down on the kitchen counter and watched Krolia look up with surprise. “You tend to frown a lot more and purse your lips when you’re thinking hard on something’.”

“No I don’t,” Krolia said, feeling her lips thin and brows tighten. She immediately relaxed her whole face. “Are you certain you don’t have anything in your set of tools that could help us pinpoint the Blue Lion’s quintessence?”   
“Definitely not,” James replied, leaning on the counter with his hands. “If I did, I would have been searching for the source of it a long time ago. Until today, I thought I was just going crazy, so I didn’t try to pursue it.”

“If that’s the case, I was thinking I might be able to use the information stored in my gauntlet to create a better tracker for the quintessence. It might not be that strong, but it’s all we got.”

“Sounds good,” James replied. “While you do that, I’ll go grab somethin’ in the closet.”

Moving helped calm his mind more. It allowed him to kinda forget that there was a ship out in the desert that could bring warring aliens from outer space onto his planet because of a quin-whatever reading they were getting from its sibling ship. Man, this whole situation sounded less absurd now that he had a slight buzz. He grabbed a small map he purchased of the area and walked back to the kitchen table with Krolia tapping onto the holo screen above her gauntlet.

“Well, good thing we have it narrowed down to this part of the desert,” he said as he spread the paper on the table and circled the part where the desert was with his finger tip when Krolia inspected it. “We should probably narrow down our search, so it may be best to start somewhere nearby.”

“Why nearby?” Krolia momentarily lifted her eyes up from the map. 

“Well, you ended up crashing so close to my house I thought it could be a some kind of a sign.”

“That’s more a stretch than a sign.”

“Fine, fine. Just lemme think some more.”

James stared at the map, hoping for something to click but he couldn’t concentrate, and the small beeping coming from Krolia was not helping. She seemed to have a better idea of what to do than he did, which was having more information that he currently possessed. He thought it would be best to leave her alone for a bit but as he moved to get up she looked at him again. 

“Where are you going?”   
“I was thinkin’ about lyin’ down on the couch, I guess?” He gestured to his previous place of rest. "Can't think sittin', might as well try lyin' down."

“Oh, okay then.”

  There was a pause that James felt was best described as: odd. Krolia's eyes shot back down to her hologram the moment her sentence was finished. James was reminded of kids back at school avoiding eye contact with anyone.

“Do you want me stay here?”  
Krolia looked back and forth between the map and her gauntlet, a genuine look of confusion spread across her face. Confusion changed to annoyance as she dropped her head and ruffled through her hair. 

“I don’t know.”

“I can stay here if that’s what you want.”

“Just… do what you like.” 

She threw her hands up in defeat and  went back on scrolling through the symbols on her gauntlet. He wanted to be more helpful, but without extra materials, he wasn’t sure if that would be possible. 

“How ‘bout a game?” James asked. “I ask you a question, you answer, and then we just keep goin’ from there?”

“That’s a conversation,” Krolia muttered and made a swiping motion with her fingertip. 

“Sorry, I was thinkin’ of another game.” 

“I just want to get my data transferred to a smaller machine so we can start searching for the Blue Lion as soon as possible.”

The words stung, but he wasn’t going to push her if that’s what she wanted. James idly stared at the map, but once again got bored. He looked towards his record player that stood on a small table top next to the bookshelf. The least he could do was mask the awkwardness in the room. 

“I’m gonna go put some music on, would that be okay?”

“That’s fine.”

James flipped through the vinly records that he had, trying to think of what mood of music he was in besides awkward and bored. He randomly chose an album and took the disk out of the sleeve. He set it up, plugged the machine in and then gently placed the needle onto the record, standing over the machine to wait through the first tiny crackles. 

He heard the first few chords of the song play before the lyrics started to play. 

“ _You could never know what it's like_

_Your blood like winter freezes just like ice_

_And there’s a cold lonely night that shines from you_

_You’ll wind up like the wreck you hide behind that mask you use…_ ”

He couldn’t stop the small smile spreading on his face. 

  “Okay, Elton John it is," he shrugged at this, too lazy to want to sift through his library to find another album to play. 

When he sat back down at the kitchen table, he threw a notepad onto the table along with a pencil, and looked up to see Krolia looking at the machine the same way she was looking at the radio. Trying to figure out exactly what each part was so she could dismantle or rebuild at a moment's notice.

“Like it?”

“I’m not sure, haven’t listened to music in a long time.”

James tapped the eraser onto the paper, trying to think of what they would need as well as trying to keep up the conversation. 

“When’s the last time you did?”

“Before I joined the Blades, that was years ago,” Krolia said. “The music we listened to wasn’t like this. This is nice.”

“I thought when you had breaks within the empire they would let you have personal time for yourself? Didn't you guys have like drinking parties or whatever?” 

“The empire doesn’t exactly believe in anything but “victory or death”,” Krolia sighed. “Focusing on just that helped with morale.”

“Did it?”

“That was a joke,” Krolia shot him a small smirk as she pulled up the pieces of her ship that they dismantled and began to put the pieces together. 

“Okay. Kinda hard to tell when you say some things in that serious tone. By some things, I mean everything.” James gestured to her face with his pencil, which only seemed to brighten her mood. 

Krolia just continued to sift through her machine parts. 

“Why do you need the tracker anyway? If your gauntlet has the readings, why don’t you use that instead and track the quintessence through there?”

“If it were that simple, we’d be out in the desert searching for the lion already. My gauntlet doesn’t have the greatest range, it’s mainly for scanning machines, health, and minimal tasks like communication. We don’t know how far out in the desert that the lion is hideen, so I need to make this tracker so we have a better chance at finding it.”

“You have all the pieces you need?”

She sifted though the parts for a few more ticks before sighing and falling back onto her chair. “I don’t suppose you have a small scanner or data chip?”

“No but, I know a guy in town who owes me a few things, specifically old mechanical parts and technology that no one else needs. So I can call him up later and ask,” James gestured to the pad of paper he had been working on.“I’m sure I can get you these parts by the afternoon after I do the grocery shopping.”

He got out of his chair, stretched and started to gather bags that he would need. 

“Anything you want me to get you?” 

  Even though Krolia seemed like she's settled in, he still wanted to  make sure she was comfortable.

“Raspberries,” Krolia said immediately, partially just to see James’ baffled expression, “And if it’s possible, do you think you could get me some sanitary products?”

“Sanitary products?” James paused for a moment before the words and various images clicked in his mind, “ _Oh_.” 

“Does your species not need any of these things?” 

Krolia wasn’t exactly sure if human female reproductive systems were similar to Galras. Or if all females in the universe had similar reproductive systems. A question for the universe itself. 

“No, no, no, no. It’s just, I kinda forgot that you need those things, once a month.” James said, trying to wrap his head around this. “Just so I have some clarification, what kind of products in space did you normally use?” 

“I’m not sure how to describe them, but I think if you just buy a reasonable amount of whatever’s normal for a human female, I’d appreciate it,” she looked down at her tools feeling more apologetic than nervous. “Sorry I’m not being very specific.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll just ask around and see what I can do from there.” James added that onto the list on the table before ripping the page off and looking up at Krolia one last time. “Okay, got it. Anything else?”

Krolia eyed the record player before deciding on answering. 

“Could you show me how to play your music thing?”

James eyed the player and looked back at Krolia. 

“I mean, you could probably find more songs you like on the radio over there if you turn the knobs.”

Krolia shook her head. 

“I want to hear the kind of music you listen to.”

James couldn’t help but laugh, “I mean, most of this ain’t mine, it was my dad’s. I’m not sure if most of these song would be in whatever you would consider music, but sure, I’ll show you.”

As James went over to the shelf to show Krolia, she stood beside him, keeping a good distance between the two, but still looking over his shoulder curiously as if admiring a relic they had dug up and were deducing its origins.

  "You seem to be extremely interested in old things," Krolia noted.   


  "Not all of my things are _that_ old," James argued as he showed her the buttons and needle. "Be careful with these."

  "Then why does everything you own look ready to fall apart?" Krolia teased, specifically jutting her head to the speeder outside. 

  "Keep this up and I might not buy those raspberries."

  "You wouldn't dare," Krolia said, pretending to look offended as James laughed. 

* * *

 

Krolia twirled the screwdriver in her hand as she looked down at the ship pieces in front of her. She had the base for her tracker all assembled, James had given her the other pieces he could scavenge from the shack, but that was all. She still needed the screen, a place to store the data, and maybe even more than that. 

She looked dow at her gauntlet that showed the time. Three vargas. Sure, James didn’t live too close to the human town, but it usually took him less than that for a shopping trip. She wondered if she should establish a communicator with him, but worried that they would draw unnecessary attention. As far as she was concerned, she didn’t trust the Garrison still, and bases as large as these were likely to have bugs or spies at the least. 

The thing that brought her out of her thoughts, was the record still playing the song from the disk James had switched it to and she sighed. As much as she started to enjoy the earth music, she wanted to pick something for herself. There's only so many times one can listen to songs that were either about heart-break, or using phrases she didn't entirely understand, and she never wanted to understand. 

  She got up, went over and gently lifted the needle up like James had taught her. She carefully lifted off the disk, placed it back in its cover and then made sure it was slotted back onto its proper shelf. 

She had no clue what she was looking for, the way she was choosing music was by looking at what cover seemed the prettiest. Dumb way to do it, but she wasn’t going to bother attempting to read ‘English’ as James called his language. He could teach more to her later, when she wasn’t trying to figure out how to create a tracker based off of the bits of information she vaguely remembered from training. 

Krolia ended up pulling out a record for an odd instrument with lots of keys on it andplaced it onto the record, starting up the machine and placing the needle onto it. The music was incredibly soothing, she could almost imagine the instrument playing. When she went back to work on assembling her pieces, she thought that moving could help jog her memory as she gathered all of her machine parts, and carried them to what James called the “coffee table” by the couch. She placed a cushion onto the floor, sat over it and attempted to get back to work. Krolia also added a reason that she didn't want to constanlty move back and forth if she wanted a different song.

But with what little pieces she had, she knew she was just trying to kill time until James got back. She hoped this wasn’t her becoming overly dependent on him to the point of needing his presence to function. Krolia jammed the first layer of hard drive inside her makeshift casing a bit too hard at that thought. 

The more she tried to make something happen, the more sleepy she became. She wanted to get up, turn off the record and try to be productive, but her body was refusing to listen to her yet again. She sighed, pushing her work away, leaning onto the table and resting her head onto her arms. The sleeves pf the slighly oversized t-shirt she wore tickled her nose, but she managed to ignore it.

She was never this calm when she was alone with the Blades or in the empire, there, she always had to be on her guard. Here, she didn’t have to be paranoid about everything, or worried that her guard will be compromised somehow. Krolia closed her eyes and wondered what kind of a strange place earth was. 

Five minutes later, the music had lulled her to sleep. 

 

* * *

 

James honked the horn of his jeep as he approached, and as he pulled up, he stared at the bags he’d have to carry inside. The guy at junk shop allowed him to take away the old tech some Garrison person threw away, saying he wanted to see if he could track stars, and enough bits and pieces that Krolia could probably make a few trackers, or whatever she wanted to make. But first, he needed her opinion on the sanitary products he bought. It wasn’t that awkward asking questions as it would have been if he were younger, but having to come up with a story about his niece Denise was excruciatingly painful. If he had to repeat the joke of "Denise's" name being a play on for "Da niece", he was never going to talk while shopping ever again.

And… he did buy Krolia those raspberries. He really needed her to give him some kind of signal to tell whether or not she was joking about things. As he pushed the door open with his shoulder, he was expecting to be greeted by a disgruntled, or bored alien. 

“Krolia, I got just about everything you need. Well, I think this is what you need, but I’m not really sure. So I would like you to-”

He looked over the corner to see Krolia laying face down on the coffee table, with her half-assembled tracker and what he could guess was piano playing in the background. It seemed a crime try to wake her up, and he wondered if attempting to rouse Krolia was going to cause him some injuries, something he wanted to avoid for the next few days. Also, she looked so cute and harmless when she was sleeping that peacefully. 

Okay, that part of his brain needed to shut up or get out of the gutter. 

He sighed, going over to the kitchen table, placing all of the groceries he could carry and walking over to Krolia. He stood beside her, weighing on whether or not waking her to check to see if the sanitary products he bought were things she would be familiar with, to just letting her rest. 

“Hah, I’m not going down this road today.” 

James slid off his jacket and gently draped it over Krolia, trying his hardest not to wake her or touch her in anyway. When she made no movement, he gave himself a mental high-five. Although he could use the help with the other groceries and machine parts, he decided that he’d rather get sore muscles from lifting these things than wrestling a half-asleep but very strong Krolia.

                                           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna make this weekly. Gonna try for every Friday. Will have art every now and then.  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	7. Taste of Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krolia and James begin their search, but it doesn't go as smoothly as they both had hoped. When James catches a cold, the two of them learn a bit more about each other.

Two days.

It took her two days to make the tracker, only because the day after she was insistent that she could do the whole thing by herself and took to using her whole day for this project. So James went out to buy a manual and then they spent that whole day arguing over how to specifically put those pieces together. It ended up with them crashing on the bed at night too tired to argue further. By morning, they agreed to work together on the project, only because they had exhausted all of their points the previous day. Once the tracker was made, they spent the rest of the afternoon planning on how to search for the lion. 

“So we agree to search for the caves and ranges nearby first before going out further into the desert?” 

“Well, I’m not going to randomly go all the way out in the desert just to be disappointed when we find nothing. So we might as well start somewhere closer.” Krolia said, looking down at the map that covered most of the area they were in. “After that, we can work on moving up in the desert if we find anything useful, or links to the Blue Lion.”

“Thinking positive, I like that,” James muttered as he stared at his empty coffee mug as if contemplating whether or not it would be worth the refill. “I’ll have our equipment set up for tomorrow so we can get started on the search as soon as we wake up.”

Krolia nodded as she continued to scrutinize the piece of paper, hating that she couldn’t interact with it more the way she could with her usual technology. The best either of them could do was make marks with pencil and then erase it later. It made her work more tedious, but it was all James could really afford. 

“We’ll find the lion, don’t worry,” James said and Krolia looked up to see his calm face staring back at her. “It’s just gonna take some time to get there.”

“How can you be so sure when we haven’t even gotten started on locating the lion?” Krolia tapped the piece of lead into the paper, wondering what else they could do besides process of elimination. 

“Just a gut feeling?” James shrugged and got up to probably prepare dinner. “Speakin’ of my guts, You okay with spaghetti tonight?”

“Is that the one with the red vegetable that looks like blood when you cook it?”

“Yup.”

“That’s fine,” Krolia replied and rubbed her eyes as she turned to look out one of the windows.

There was so much she still wasn’t sure of about earth, and if there was one thing she hated, it was when she didn’t have a enough information at her disposal. If she didn’t know enough, she couldn’t make an informed decision. Sparse information lead to failure, and failure lead to death. She didn’t have the luxury of affording to fail this mission no matter how safe it seemed to be out here with James.

“Wanna help?” 

“What?” Krolia’s head rolled lazily to James. 

“You’re thinking too hard again. So I thought you could help out with dinner by cutting some things up. It’ll help clear your head,” James gestured to the cutting board filled with the vegetables that would be going into their meal. 

“Fine, but just because I use a knife a lot doesn’t mean it translates well to cooking.”  
“You’re just better at handlin’ a knife than I am.”

Krolia grabbed a tomato, twisted it around in her palm and rolled her eyes. 

“That we can both agree on.”

 

He adjusted sleeping next to Krolia faster than he expected it to be. While he wasn’t sure if she was over her night terrors, so far, nothing big had happened. 

That was until tonight happened.

James had gotten used to Krolia sometimes tugging at his sheets, and that barely woke him up. But for some reason, tonight decided that it had to be different. He awoke to Krolia’s screams. It was a blood-curdling kind of scream, making him shoot up with his heart beating painfully fast as he turned to see her writhing in the sheets. Out of instinct, he reached over to try and wake her up. 

“Krolia! Krolia! Wake up!”

Before he could say anymore, Krolia’s eyes shot open, snapping her arm out to grab her knife from the night stand and it was at James’ throat in the blink of an eye. It wasn’t as close as previous times, but that wasn’t James’ biggest concern. 

“Hey, hey, it’s me. You were dreamin’,” James spoke as calmly and as quietly as he could, noticing the iris of Krolia’s eyes turning into slits, like how some animals look when angered or threatened. 

Krolia looked down at the knife in her hand and quickly threw it back on the stand. She grasped all of the blankets that she could and wrapped herself in them, trying to cocoon herself from him. 

“Krolia-,”  
“Just let me sleep,” her voice cracked and he could still see her shivering. 

“Krolia… I’m just gonna touch you, is that okay?”

He waited for her to even out her breathing and when she nodded, he placed his hand over one of hers. It seemed better than putting it on her shoulder. That, and at this moment, Krolia needed the comfort. 

“It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay,” he said softly and kept his hand there.

Krolia’s hand twitched under his touch, but she wasn’t pulling away. After a few moments, she spoke again, her voice somewhat back to its usual stiff mannerism. 

“That night when I crashed… you could have just let me die and pretended that nothing had happened. You could have saved yourself so much trouble, so why?”

James paused to consider his answer, something he’d constantly give to people who asked him when he was still working as a firefighter. 

“‘Cause I always want to help people, no matter what kind of danger it could mean for me. If I know there’s a chance I could save a life that’s right in front of me, I go in and do it.”

“So what you’re saying is, is that you’re extremely foolish,” Krolia muttered.

“Well, as one of my friends once put it, “bravely stupid”, but you’re not too far off the mark,” James laughed. “Even if you were to go back in time, I’d still save you no matter what.”

Krolia grumbled as she curled in more of the blankets and closed her eyes.

“I didn’t think it was possible for you humans to embarrass me more.”  
“You think this is embarrassing?” 

“Not as much as those videos of your kind trying to do those stunts without any prior training. You’re a close second.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” James sighed and tried to pull his hand away.

“Could you, leave your hand there until I sleep?” Krolia asked, not bearing to turn her face around to ask him directly. “Just in case I have another nightmare again.”

James could only see Krolia’s back and wasn’t sure on how to gauge her expression, but he left his hand there and tried to settle back down into sleep. 

“Okay.”

She didn’t stir for the rest of the night, and he hoped that it would stay that way.

* * *

 

“You know, if someone told me that I would one day be tracking down an ancient alien spaceship located in the desert, I’d have thought it would be more exciting than this.” James said as he leaned against his speeder and watching Krolia holding up her tracker out and staring at the line moving up and down the radar. 

“Think of this like research, that’s never a fun thing to do, but people still do it to get their results.”

Krolia concentrated on the line, trying to see if anything in this area matched the Red Lion’s quintessence. She even switched it to the other screen that showed the quintessence reading of the area, but nothing matched. A part of her wanted to say that the equipment was faulty, but she knew that she and James had worked on it to the point where it could find the faintest trace of quintessence in the area. 

“You’re sure you can’t track down the area of where the signal could be originating from?” Krolia asked as she turned around and looked over to James. “You’ve been able to hear it for years.”

“Not now, but maybe in a couple of weeks, I think I can get that computer working and having it scan more of the area if we can make it,” James unrolled the map, tracing a small “x” over an area and looking at the four other small “x’s” he had to make. “This place was a “no” as well.”

“I’m going to try and get to higher ground,” Krolia said as she took a few steps back to look at the pillars of stone jutting up in the sky, trying to mentally calculate the distance from her position to the top of the peak. 

“You sure that’s going to change anything?”

“It’s worth a shot, and I don’t think you’ll be able to get up that high,” Krolia pointed out as she tensed up and ran towards one of the rocks, jumping off the sides and then grasping onto a ledge. 

Krolia hefted herself up higher and then pulled out her tracker, trying to see if the height had helped at all. Adjusting the frequency hadn’t done a thing and at this point, she wasn’t getting results, she was just out of breath.

“Anything?” James yelled from below. 

“Nothing. We’ll have to check elsewhere.”

Krolia let go and broke her fall by rolling, getting up and dusting herself off. It still felt weird moving around in human clothes which felt loose, but at least it kept her cooler than having her suit cook her alive. 

James looked over the landscape, scratching his chin. 

“You ever think of how this place starts lookin’ the same after you stare at it for a awhile?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s the main function of deserts,” Krolia said as she tried to adjust the frequency. “Everything looks the same so it just drives you insane.”

“Hard to believe this whole place used to be covered by water. Wonder if that’s why the lion chose to land here.”

Krolia made no further comment as she clicked her teeth and walked over to the speeder. She was getting sweaty just by standing under the sun for this long. 

“Let’s get moving before it gets too hot out here.”

She adjusted the t-shirt she wore, frowning down at the cloth. 

“Do you have anything thinner than this?”  
“I have some tank-tops back at this house, you can just pick whatever and we’ll see what fits.”

 

The days seemed to stretch on, and every time they felt like they were getting a lead, they were either pulled into a dead end, or they lost the connection. James had taken most of his time trying to set up the electronics he had amassed with Krolia helping him trying to adjust the machines, as well as mending her suit. Most of their days, they would either spend searching, or working on the equipment. They’d end up crashing on the bed at night and quickly falling to sleep out of sheer exhaustion, then repeating the same thing over again like they did when getting used to each other. 

When Krolia woke up that morning, prepared to eat something for breakfast, she was confused to find James still sleeping beside her. He was usually the first one up preparing the food, but this time she wasn’t sure why he wasn’t even moving. 

“James?” Krolia asked as she nudged him in the back. “Are you alive?”

“Barely…” James groaned, his voice cracking and he sounded either congested or like someone was grabbing him by the throat. “I think I’m gonna die in my bed. Not the worst way to go.”

“When did you get sick? You sounded fine yesterday.”

“I was coverin’ it up.” James coughed, causing his whole body to shudder. “Knew I shouldn’t have talked to that kid when I was buying groceries.”

Krolia pulled at James’ shoulder until he was laying on his back and she could see his face clearly. He did seem more flushed than normal.

“Do you need any medicine?” 

“Pills should be some in the bathroom in the medicine cabinet. Bottle has an orange line on it.”

“Shouldn’t we check your temperature as well?”  
“Pretty sure you can tell how deathly ill I am based on my voice.”

Krolia slipped out of bed, went down to grab her gauntlet, and then returned upstairs to the medicine cabinet. She found the bottle he described and twisted off a small plastic cup from another bottle and put water in it. When she got back, James had taken to slapping the back of his hand over his forehead and tossing the blankets from the upper-half of of his body off to the side. 

“Thanks,” he muttered, trying to clear his stuffed nose at the same time he spoke when Krolia placed the pills and water on the nightstand. 

Krolia pulled her gauntlet on and began to type in James’ status. 

“Whaddya doin’? I don’t need my temperature…” James groused, trying to turn his head to look at Krolia, but even that seemed to be extending too much effort. 

“Shut up and let me do this,” Krolia said. “I’m not taking orders from someone who can barely open their eyes.”

After she scanned James’ body, she read the diagnosis. 

“It just looks like you have a high fever. After that, it doesn’t seem too serious as long as you get the proper sleep and nourishment.” 

“I’ll drink to that,” James forced his body up, dropping the pill to the back of his throat and took a drink from the small cup. “Thanks again.”

“Do you need anything else?” She asked, looking at the human with concern. They were already fragile enough if the documentaries she watched were anything to go off of. 

“Just maybe a bottle of water and leave me alone for a few hours, or days. Whatever, just let me sleep.”

“I’ll work on tracking down the lion,” Krolia said and hesitated to leave. “You’re sure you’ll be alright by yourself?”

“Yeah, yeah, just let me sleep and I should be fine.” As he heard Krolia’s feet walking away, he quietly added, “Don’t crash the speeder.”

As Krolia went downstairs, she looked back to see James attempting to sleep, and felt a little bad leaving him like this. But the lion came first. She took an apple from the fridge and ate that as her breakfast, also getting a water bottle and taking it back upstairs, placing it next to the pill bottle. She sifted through the closet, throwing on a white jacket and grabbed her tracker as she went out the front door. 

Even when throwing her bag around her side and getting the speeder ready, it still felt weird doing this by herself. Nearly two months ago she would have been fine searching on her own, believing that it would have made the mission go faster. Now as she revved up the engine, she wondered if she would ever get much done today. 

  She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind as she felt the machine lift itself up in the air and she sped off into the desert. 

  _Nothing but the mission. Think of nothing else but the mission._  

* * *

 

James woke up to a bleary image of Krolia and a smell he couldn’t identify. When he blinked a few more times to clear his eyes, he could make out a steaming bowl.

“Krolia?”  
“Yes, it’s me.” She said as she sat down next to him and began to stir a spoon in the contents. 

“Shouldn’t you be lookin’ for the lion?”

“I did a few hours of searching and I couldn’t find anything. It doesn’t matter if I don’t find the lion today, we’ll probably run into the same problem for a few more weeks until we get your machines ready.”

“What’s that?” James asked, looking at the bowl. “Please tell me you’re not tryin’ toforce more medicine down my throat.”

“Soup. Just drink it. I ate this a lot when I got sick, so it should help.” Krolia sat on the side of the bed, holding a spoon full of what looked like broth to James as he tried to sit up. 

After he managed to sit by propping a pillow behind his back, he looked at what was in the spoon and full of grey-green stuff. He took a sip that Krolia offered was surprised to find it wasn’t as bad as he had expected it to be. It was a little thick and had a bit of a bitter taste to it, but it wasn’t hard to swallow. 

“Mmh, this is pretty good,” he slowly took the bowl from Krolia, and tried to be careful not to spill. “I didn’t think you knew how to cook this kind of food with earth ingredients.”

“It took me a while to figure out how to make this since as you said, earth ingredients aren’t exactly the same as what I had back home. So I had to scan a lot of the foods you had to get something similar.” Krolia didn’t think that adding in the fact that she had nearly burned some of the ingredients was worth mentioning. 

“So someone made this for you when you were sick?” 

“My father did.” Krolia’s eyes softened as she thought of her father, how long had it been since she remembered that?

“You got a family back… up there?” He gestured to the sky with his index finger. “I mean, if that’s too private I’ll understand if you don’t wanna talk about it.”

“No, it isn’t too personal,” Krolia paused for a moment to let those words settle into her mind. “He cooked for our whole village if he could, and he always wanted to make sure others were happy. Whenever I got sick, he’d make this and I’d feel better in a few days. I … haven’t thought about him for years.”

“Years? Is it because of your whole organizations thing ‘bout secrecy?” James wondered how hardcore these Galra ninjas were. 

“I think it’s due more to the fact that I’ve always been occupied with my duties to really give the past much thought,” Krolia replied, looking down at her legs. “He was all I had left before I decided to join the Blades.”

“Well, maybe once you’re able to get back into space you can go see him again?” James suggested. 

“He died of an illness when I was young,” Krolia said and looked down at her hands. “After a few years, I ran into one of the members of the Blade when I tried to help some captives the Galra were taking try to escape. They thought I could do more, and I accepted. I didn’t really have anywhere else to go, and I was tired of seeing the empire take so much from those who could barely fight back.”

She turned to look at James who was waiting for her to continue. 

“That’s why I need to find this lion. If it can help end this reign of suffering, I’m willing to lay down my life to make that happen, no matter what it takes.”

James smiled at her and took a sip of the soup. 

“Guess that’s something we have in common. We do things for the greater good even if it could cost us our lives.”

“I suppose you can make a connection there,” Krolia replied with a smile of her own. “What about your parents? I talked about mine, and it seems only fair you tell me about yours.”

“I don’t really want to talk about them.” James voice grew hushed as he looked down at his food.

“But didn’t you say this house used to belong to them? So why do you live out here alone?” Krolia asked as she carefully tried to navigate her way around this subject, “You could be around those of your own kind, and you must have friends, yet you choose to isolate yourself out here?”

“Well, I’m not really one for being ‘round others.” James replied, his voice dropping as he stirred his soup around with his spoon. 

“I seem to be an exception.”

“There are a few reasons for that. One, you’re the only other person out here. Two, people will freak if they see you. Finally, you’ve kinda grown on me, so I don’t have much of a choice.”

“While your reasons are true, that still doesn’t answer my question.” Krolia took a moment for the silence to sit between them before moving on with her question. “Don’t you have a family you want to see?”

James groaned as he straightened his back and looked up to the ceiling. “I do… but it’s been _years_ since I last talked to them.”

“How long?” Krolia asked as she looked up from her work. 

James let out a low hum in his throat before answering. “I dunno, I’ve lost track and I don’t think they even care if I’m alive or dead. I won’t be surprised if my parents act like I never even existed.”

Something about how James nonchalantly said that statement about his parents pretending their own son never existed… While Krolia could understand the Blade learning to let go of the memory of her and choosing to believe she’s dead for the time she’s been gone, it felt different for James’ kind. Surely since they seemed to live in a time of peace, they would want to reconnect and mend their broken relationship with him. 

“I’m gonna take a guess and say you’re thinkin’ why neither of us want to try and get back together?”

Krolia looked at James’ face, feeling slightly miffed that her expressions were becoming more and more discernible to the human. Next to her combat skills, she prided herself at being able to keep her emotions in check. However, she gave a slight nod of her head to tell him to continue. 

“I think they always saw me as a problem kid, and they were right to believe that. I did stuff they didn’t approve of, I took big risks, and… _Man_ , I can’t remember what started the last fight when they decided to kick me out. Or maybe I just decided to leave and never go back.”

He let out a heavy sigh before giving Krolia a reassuring grin, “But, it was probably over something stupid that I did, so don’t feel too bad. Or not, the point is I’m actually glad I left in the end. I got to work at a job that I was proud of. I mean… I eventually got kicked out of there too, but I’m still happy with my life and I don’t regret where I am now. If I hadn’t done all those stupid things, I wouldn’t be here talkin’ to you.”

Krolia considered that. She looked over at her blade, staring at the clean edges and at the Marmoran symbol laying on the nightstand. Even she started to wonder how different her life would have been if she didn’t consider taking the Blades offer and being assigned to help search for the lions of Voltron. She turned away from James to try and compose herself, and to make sure that he couldn’t see her expression as she did. 

“I suppose part of this speech is your fever talking.”

“Our definition of truth seems to be a little skewed,” James said, but grinned at Krolia’s expression. “Okay, okay, maybe it is due to the fever, but know that I’m being serious about what I’ve said.”

“Thanks,” Krolia smiled and watched as James finished the bowl. “Was it good?”

“Yeah,” James held it out to her. “You have more?”

She spent the rest of that day tending to James and bringing his equipment up to work on and get feedback. It took him four days to get better, and another week before they finally got an actual lead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When we get a canon confirmation of Keith's dad's name, I swear I'm going to go back and edit everything.  
> Mild spoilers for season 7, but I can't believe that jerkass kid who Keith punches is named James. That makes writing this fic so awkward for me (and I refuse to change his name to Heath, JDS and Lauren!)  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	8. Heartbeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trail for the lion is left, and a fire is sparked.

    Krolia wiped the sweat from her forehead and was grateful to be sitting in the shade of the caves with a canteen of water that James brought. It had been another fruitless expedition, and she was frankly getting tired of looking for the lion. Why couldn’t it have chosen a closer place to land than far out in a desert? While the ocean would have been troublesome, the constant desert area and shifting sand-like dirt was becoming less appealing by the hour.

  “You ready to take another crack at this?” James asked, leaning an arm against the wall and Krolia handed him the water since even he looked parched despite his cheerful attitude.

  “Give me a few more ticks and then I’ll see if the sun agrees with me.” Krolia rubbed her shoulders, and wondered if the sting was from her dress shirt that was now tied across her waist, or from the sun. She applied sunscreen like James had asked, but seriously doubted that earth products were _that_ effective.

  After taking a gulp of water, James replied back, “Well, this is only attempt forty-six, so, yeah, I got my hopes up.”

   “We’ll see if this actually goes anywhere,” Krolia replied and stood up, dusting her pants of dirt.

  The two walked out of the cave and towards the speeder with Krolia getting on first and holding up the tracker to the air.

  “Let me know if you pick up any of the quintessence signals when we start heading out.”

  She merely nodded and wrapped an arm around James’ waist, letting the familiar hum of the speeder rise them off the ground and they took off. While she was focused on not falling, she peered down at her tracker every now and then, ready to give James their signal, which was a hand on his shoulder if she spotted something. After a few minutes, she glanced back down again, expecting to see nothing and nearly dropped her tracker in surprise.

  “James, I’m getting something!” Krolia yelled, as she saw a small spike and nearly grabbed his ear to get his attention.

  James pulled the speeder into a jarring halt, causing the two of them to crash into each other. Krolia nearly rammed her head into the back of James’ skull while he sounded like he had just punched himself in the gut.

  “Next time, try and warn me in a way that doesn’t almost kill us,” he groaned, but Krolia ignored that as she jumped off and stared at her tracker.

  The line was spiking again when she aimed it towards a rock structure pointing towards another cave. It was a slim difference in peak, but compared to what they’ve been running around trying to catch for the past months, this was a welcomed change.

  “Why is it always caves?” Krolia sighed as James walked up behind her.

  “That’s new,” he said as he gestured to the line. “Maybe the lion’s tryin’ to give us a hint?”

  “A hint we could have used nearly four months back,” Krolia spat as she tried to see whether or not the tracker was actually just messed up after all of their travels. “Why now of all times? What if this turns out to be nothing like all of the other times?”

  “Let’s just follow it and see where it takes us, okay?”

  The two walked towards the direction of the cave, trying to keep both of their expectations as low as possible. When they entered, it seemed as dank and boring as the previous cave, and Krolia was ready to call it quits after hitting the tracker a few times.

  “We may have hit another dead end. What should we do now, James? James?” Krolia turned to find James wandering towards the walls, his hands outstretched and his face looking at her with confusion. Had this been an entirely different situation, she would have chided him for acting so carelessly, but his expression piqued her own curiosity.

  “What the hell are these?” James asked as he ran his hand over the carvings on the wall.

  Even though she could see them clearly, she took out the flashlight James had stashed in their bags and shined it on the wall and leaned forward to inspect it closer. She was hoping this was a mirage, but after touching it herself, it clearly wasn’t. These didn’t look like the kind humans would have made, instead, they looked carved into the walls and she recognized immediately the form of the Blue lion.

 “Is this what you’ve been lookin’ for?” James asked as he watched Krolia step forward to stare at the wall. “What’s it say?”

 “I think these could be recordings of how the Blue lion came here,” Krolia breathed, hardly believing all of the stories she’d been told about the lions of Voltron was now an actual event she was experiencing.

  “Can you decipher it?”

  “Barely. I think most of it has to be taken with a grain of salt if I were to interpret it,” she took out her gauntlet and scanned the walls as best as she could.

  Her head turned sharply when she heard a snap sound coming from James.

  “Really?”

  James put his camera down and looked over to Krolia, “Just in case your scans aren’t that helpful.”

  “What if someone stumbles on these photos?” She gestured to the walls with a look exasperation. “All the things we find need to remain confidential, and no one can know that these things exist.”

  “They won’t, I’ll be careful,” James lifted his camera again and pointed it elsewhere. “Been lucky this far.”

  “Are we counting the times I had to catch from falling off of those cliff edges?” Krolia asked after she let her hand pass over more carvings of the lion before turning away from it.

  “ _One time_ ,” he muttered as he turned to take another photo. “Krolia, do you think you could shine your flashlight on the markings over here? This part seems pretty interestin’.”

  Krolia pointed her light to where James indicated and saw what looked like people walking towards the Blue lion. Were they being guided by it? Or were they being led to it? These “clues” were giving her more questions than answers, probably the reason why it even existed.

  “Let’s look further down the cave and see if there are more carvings.”

  “Good call.”

    They stuck close to each other as they traversed the dark cave, trying to follow as much of the carvings as they could find. By the time they got to the end, James plopped down on a nearby rock and tiredly looked around.

  “I don’t think we’re gonna get any more out of this cave. We should probably call it a day and look at what we got.”

  When he got no response, he looked up to see Krolia stood staring at the cavern walls, her brain wracking to solve this mystery, but it only lead her to more inquiries. She looked like she was going to try and dig through the walls just to see if there was a hidden wall filled with more secrets for them to uncover. As much as he wanted to help her pursue more information on the lion, he was tired, and they wouldn’t be able to get more information without his computers and other instruments back home.

  “Krolia?” He asked as he approached, but she either ignored him, or didn’t hear him at all. Too lost in her own thoughts to really focus on the other person beside her.

  He walked up to her and gently took Krolia’s hand, watching and gauging her reaction.

  “We should go home.”

  She paused, took a moment to stare at this gesture and didn’t immediately try to pull her hand away. Instead, she let his hand hold her own and remain there.

  For a long time, she had only considered things between her and James in terms of what was his and what was hers. These tools were his, these items were hers. The house was his, this mission was hers. Those two terms never seemed to have settled on to “ours” until now. Or maybe it had been for a while, but she just refused to acknowledge it. Getting close to others had always been a bit uncomfortable since her tenure with the Blades, and James felt like uncharted territory. 

  As much as she wanted to explore more of these caverns and try to find more hints, she knew it had been a long day, and it would be better to return home to process everything they had discovered.

  She nodded, letting her body relax as she turned to get ready to leave the dark cavern with James hand gently clasped against her own.

  “…Alright. Let’s go home.”

  

* * *

 

  James hit the last key on his computer and cracked his neck. He thought logging in the data he and Krolia had collected would have been a cinch, but doing all of that while working on a machine he should have known he only had experience on for about a month wouldn’t help speed up the process. After logging in the coordinates of where their first cave drawings were found he decided to get some air.

  He walked out of the shack to see Krolia standing with knife in hand, and staring at the tree with a look of deep concentration.

  Or maybe she was trying to see if she could lift up the hulk of wood telepathically.

  “What’s new about the tree? Please don’t tell me you’re thinking about cutting it down.”

  “It’s not that,” Krolia huffed, tilting her head towards the tire swing. “I’m just trying to figure out what kind of trap you were trying to make out of this tire.”

  James laughed, “That isn’t a trap, it’s a swing. You use it for fun.”

  Krolia let one of her crooked eyebrows raise up suspiciously.

  “Fun? You know when-“

  “I know what “fun” is, James,” Krolia sighed as she sheathed her knife away. “I just don’t understand your humans terms for it. What’s so great about swinging on something like this?”

  “Well, you must have had a certain activity you played back in your village when you were young. This was one of the few activities I had as a kid to do.”

  “We did play a lot of different games,” Krolia mused. “However, it’s been so long that I’ve kind of forgotten how the rules and the game itself went.”

  “How ‘bout I show you how to use the swing, it’ll be fun after all of the things we ran into today.”

  “You really don’t have to,” Krolia said.

  “Just try it.” James urged.

  Krolia sighed waking towards him and looked at the tire. “How do I sit on this thing if the tire is pointing out like this?”

  “You go from behind and slip your legs through like this,” James demonstrated how to put his legs through the hole of the tire and moved aside to let Krolia attempt to slip inside. “Now, just hold onto the rope up here, balance yourself, and make sure you got a tight grip.”

  “This doesn’t feel safe,” Krolia pointed out as her shoulders tensed when she grasped the rope. “Is this even secure?”

  “That’s the fun of it,” James shrugged as he took a step back. “Now just hold on and I’ll give you a small push.”

  Krolia looked ready to scream than trust him, and he could feel her skin jolt when he pushed her and he watched as she swung about a foot away from him. When she swung back, he pushed her again. This time, she let out what sounded like a squeak of terror, causing James let out a choked laugh.

  “Was that you?”

  “Shut up!” Krolia yelped as he pushed her harder, causing her body to attempt to curl in on itself as she swung even higher.

  “You havin’ fun?” James yelled as Krolia came back.

  “This would be exhilarating-!” She swung outward. “If not for how worried the rope is making me!”

  Krolia nearly screeched back and when he pushed her again, he could hear the distress in her voice. “Alright! Alright! I’m done! Make it stop now!”

  He spared her any more embarrassment as he grabbed onto the rope and dug his feet into the ground below. Krolia’s body swung back and forth like a pendulum a couple of times before she settled back down, her head hidden between her arms and her hands gripping the rope tightly between her grasp.

  “You wanna get off now?”

  “Nothing would make me happier right now,” Krolia gasped and slid out of the tire, leaning forward with her hands on her upper thighs and breathing heavily. “I. Hate. You.”

  “If you wanna even it out, you can push me.”

  Krolia looked up at him and she seemed to finally get her bearings. “You sure about that?”

  “I trust you.” James replied simply.

  She made a sort of grin on her face that definitely didn’t make his trust in her increase by much and he started getting a little nervous when he slipped inside the wheel. When he got a good grip onto the rope, he felt Krolia stand behind him and he was about to ask what she was doing when he felt a hug shove and let out a horrified shriek as he felt himself being nearly thrown up to the sky.

  “KROLIA!”

  He swung back and forth, with Krolia standing off to the side with her arms crossed and a smug grin on her face.

  “What? Aren’t you having fun?” The smugness in her voice would have irritated him had he not been so terrified.

  “COULD YOU PLEASE STOP THIS NOW?!”

  “I’m going to wait until you’re at a lower speed before stopping you.”

  “NOW WOULD BE NICE!” He yelled as he passed her yet again.

  She finally grabbed the rope and he jolted to the sides and glanced up to Krolia smiling innocently.

  “Had fun?”

  James couldn’t help but manage a small smile back.

  “Ha, ha, can you help me down now?”

  Krolia had to carry him back inside the house and he had to lay down for a good half an hour before he could move like a normal human being.

 

* * *

 

  A few hours after they’d eaten dinner, James grabbed the bag he had set up earlier and looked over to Krolia pouring over an old magazine with her gauntlet by her side.

  “Wanna join me outside?” He asked and Krolia tore her focus away from the paper text and looked at him curiously. “I got something planned and I think you’ll like it.”

  “What kind of event?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Krolia slowly stood up, but not without a small sarcastic remark coming from her mouth, “Sure, doesn’t sound concerning at all.”

  The two walked outside with the cool air washing over them, erasing any trace of heat they may hav felt earlier that day. Krolia watched as James walked near the shack where a stack of wood laid and carried a few pieces of wood under his other arm.

  “Wanna help me start this fire?” James asked as he lugged over the pieces of firewood he had chopped up a few days earlier over to Krolia.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t your previous job supposed to be _preventing_ fires from happening?”

  “I know how to safely start one, and I’ll just leave that part to Smokey, or somethin’,” James said as he set everything up for the two of them.

  “What’s the occasion this time?” Krolia vaguely remembered when James brought home a case of that “beer” and other types of liquor he drank and decided it was a day for them to treat themselves. They spent the next day groaning and refusing to talk above a whisper. She was grateful that they at least didn’t do anything stupid while inebriated.

  “We’re getting closer to findin’ the lion after tonight, so I thought we oughta celebrate it.”

  Krolia adjusted the white dress shirt that would usually be wrapped around her waist, was now over her body and she crossed her arms looking at James. “You humans have a saying I think might apply to this situation, “Don’t count your hens before they hatch”.”

  “Nice, where’d you hear that term from?” James lifted his head up and looked up to Krolia.

  “Read it,” she smiled proudly. “The translator seems to be working, and your little lessons have made some contribution.”

  “Lucky you, today I’m gonna teach you more stuff, like starting a campfire. Did the Blades ever teach you survival skills?”

  “We have basic survival training, but a lot of it went to physical skills, hacking and learning how to lie.”

  “Time to add more skills to your arsenal then. It’ll be helpful to learn how to do this if you ever get marooned on another planet or whatever’s up in space?”

  Krolia didn’t say anything to that, but she followed James’ instructions and soon they had a fire started and they both sat down in front of it, watching the orange and red flames licking the air.

  “Are you going to tell me what we’re going to do now that we’re sitting out in front of a fire?” Krolia asked as she tilted her head and staring at his bag. “It’d better not be more liquor after last time.”

  “Now, for the grand reveal,” he said and lifted up the graham crackers, chocolate and bag of marshmallows in the other hand. “Ta-da!”

  “We’re going to… roast some food?” Krolia asked, looking between the ingredients and James’ face.

  “This one’s special. We’re gonna make some outdoor food called s’mores. I used to eat this a lot when I went camping with my dad. Haven’t done it in a while though.”

  “You roast these confectionery puff rocks? That seems unsafe.”

  Krolia took one marshmallow out of the bag and squished it between her fingers looking apprehensive. “Why do you humans like eating the strangest and unhealthiest things?”

  “Well, what’s normal for us might be strange to you, and vice versa,” James said and started to spear a few more marshmallows on a stick.

  “No. If the multitude of tv channels is anything to go off of, the kind of things you humans are willing to eat is downright disgusting. Ergo, you humans really just like to eat strange foods,” Krolia teased as she threw her marshmallow and it hit James’ cheek.

  “Watch and learn,” James said as he speared one marshmallow onto a stick and poked it int the fire. “You wanna try and get a nice golden brown color on the marshmallow.”

  Krolia watched with mild fascination.

  “Then, you take it out,” James paused to blow off flames that still clung to his food, and grabbed a graham cracker and piece of chocolate. “Get a graham cracker, put on the chocolate, then you place the marshmallow onto it. Finally, you get a final graham cracker, put it on top, and after you pull the stick out, voila. S’mores.”

  He showed it to Krolia before taking a bite and wiping off the crumbs that fell onto his lap.

  “Is it good?” She asked as she pulled out another marshmallow with increased wonder.

  “Try it and find out,” James said and watched Krolia take a bite out of the treat.

  “Sweet,” she said and looked at the snack a little longer before taking up a stick, spearing it and then poking it into the fire.

  They both watched as the white outer lining started to turn light brown to dark brown and then black.

  “You wanna, take it out now?”

  “Just curious to see how long it will take for the marshmallow to cook,” Krolia said, staring at the piece of sugar intently.

  James had to pull the stick out of the flames at the last moment when it looked like it was turning into ash. He was so tempted to yank the stick and smash the burning marshmallow onto the ground to put out the flames, but Krolia simply blew it off and took an experimental bite out of the char. He watched the sugar stick to her teeth and stretch from where she bit it, looking for a reaction.

  “Do you actually like that?”

  “I think it tastes fine,” Krolia shrugged. “A little bitter, but fine.”

 James could only shake his head, “You’re officially dead to me.”

  Krolia nudged him playfully and finished the whole piece. She then held out her hand to James.

  “I’ll do it properly this time,” Krolia said as he handed her the other ingredients and she began to roast another marshmallow. “So you used to do this kind of thing with your father?”

   “Yeah, he said it was for us to bond more as men, and I did enjoy it. But as I got older, we spent less time together.” He used a stick to push a few logs in the flame and then tossed a new piece in. “Kinda feels weird to be doin’ this again after so long.”

  Krolia said nothing as he started to make another s’mores, and when she was done, she held up her s’more for him to see.

  “Go ahead and try it,” James said and Krolia took a bite out of her s’mores and watched her eyes go wide when she pulled away to see a string of sugar following her mouth.

  James leaned over to offer Krolia a napkin that she gladly took and wiped off the crumbs and the rest of the melted marshmallow from her lips.

  “Good?”

  “This is even sweeter than just the marshmallow,” she said with her mouth full of the treat. “But it’s not that bad.”

  She chucked her stick into the fire and quietly finished her food. James followed suit after finishing his s’more, blew on it to lessen the heat and took a bite, feeling some of the chocolate smear on his upper lip. Krolia smiled at him and offered him the napkin she used, gesturing to where the melted chocolate was.

  “Did you always make s’mores when you cooked with your father?”

  “No. If we went out camping, sometimes we’d fish or he’d bring stuff for us to cook. One time during one of our trips when some of his friends came along, I was sixteen when he accidentally got me drunk.”

  Krolia turned her head to him with a look of surprise, “He got you drunk?”

 “I kinda blame myself for rifling through his stuff,” James admitted as he wiped off the last bit of crumbs or sticky food he could get. “I was really thirsty after our hike, and I just went through his bag, found a metal canteen I thought was water and took a super long sip from it. I thought it was juice, so I drank some more. I don’t really remember much after that, I mean there were hazy images, but nothing super clear. So the next morning, my dad told me how he was amazed that I caught us so many fishes with my bear hands and how I managed to beat one of his friends in an arm wrestling competition.”

  “So he walked into my tent and told me, “I was really proud of you yesterday, I didn’t know you could do any of that”. I told him, “What did I do?” and he explained everything to me. When I told him I couldn’t remember, he thought I was being modest and offered me his silver canteen as a “celebratory drink”. That’s when it all started to kinda click for me. I looked at him and said, “What’s in there?” “Some alcohol from your Uncle’s store, he gave it to me. You can have a sip, and don’t tell your mother”.”

  He saw Krolia’s cheeks puff up slightly, like she was trying hard not to giggle or smile.

  “So I started to tell him that, “I think I might have drunk from that canteen yesterday”, and he looks at me, askin’ “Why do you think that?” Then I explained how I got so thirsty after the hike and took a long drink from his canteen. There was this kind of look in his eye, that showed that he was realizin’ that I wasn’t tellin’ a joke and then he just kind of sits back and says, “That explains a lot”.”

  “I ask him to elaborate and he said that last night, after I arm wrestled one of his friends, we had a big meal and I threw up shortly afterwards. The guys thought I got food poisoning, or just hated the way one of them cooked the food. They jokingly called me a little punk and told me to go to bed early, and I apparently turned to them and said, “Why should I e’en listen to you? My man here”, and I pointed to my dad, “He doesn’ even like two out of the three of ya!” Then I slumbered off to sleep and they had a bit of an argument that I slept through.”

  He paused for another moment, thinning his lips as a realization came to him.

  “That was probably the reason why we stopped goin’ camping with his friends,” he said jokingly. “And how my dad started to just have small cookouts with s’mores instead of going out into the wilderness where I was likely going to tell everyone his deepest darkest secrets.”

  Krolia laughed, tilting her head up to the starry night sky and her shoulders shook with each heave of air. How this happened, he wasn’t sure, but time seemed to have slowed down or froze. The light from the fire gave Krolia’s face a warm glow and it made the features on her face seem gentler than before. As she calmed down, she turned to look back at James and he had to immediately avert his gaze.

  He didn’t know why his heart was beating this fast and blamed it on the s’mores. Yes. Definitely had to be from all the sugar in the s’mores.  

  James cleared his throat and tried to remain as calm as possible as he reached for another stick.

  “So, wanna make another one?”

  “Fine, I won’t char it again, I promise.”  
  The heat from their fire seemed to be keeping them too warm and James had to subtly make room between him and Krolia in hopes that it would help him cool down to some extent. It didn’t help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, S7 is dropping next week, and I'm waiting to binge it with my friends so I have to avoid the internet for like 6 days, fml (TvT). So if we do get new info about Keith's dad and Krolia, I will be adding it to the fic but that won't be for like a week after S7 has aired.  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	9. Knowledge Or...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feelings continue to grow, and the search for the lion continues to get increasingly annoying. As well as life-threatening.

He was beginning to worry that he was starting to develop a bit of an unhealthy fixation on Krolia. 

This morning he was watching her sleep (for fuck’s sake) before he realized how creepy that was and ran downstairs to make something that would get his mind off of her. When that was finished, he brought up the small computer he had been working on and sifted through all of the images they had of the carvings, trying to make heads and tails of what it could mean. He looked down at his pad of paper to see what his notes were and most of them either had questions marks at the end or underlined heavily with pencil marks. 

He barely registered the shower head turning off upstairs and the wooden stairs creaking under the weight of another person when Krolia walked down.

“Trying to see if you can spot some patterns from the caves that we found?” He heard Krolia asked and looked up to see her head covered by a towel and wearing her red tank top.

He was unconsciously watching some of the water drip down her throat before averting his eyes and focusing on the image. 

“Yeah, it seems like the images are repeating the same thing over and over wherever we went. There’s a circle in the sky, the lion, and then I’m guessin’ the rest are people? These look primitive, but it doesn’t seem like drawings people from a long time ago would make.”

“You mean back when your species were cave dwellers?” Krolia asked, leaning forward to peer at the screen with the image James described heavily zoomed in on. 

“Back then they used charcoal or paints to make their drawings, but these things are _carved_ into the wall. As much as I want to think maybe humans used to know about the Blue lion, I highly doubt that was the case.”

Krolia sighed as she stood up again, putting her hands over the towel and rubbing it furiously over her damp hair. “We’ll just have to find more of these then and see if anything can make some actual sense. Maybe we’ll find more to this story.”

“If we can find more caves with these things in it,” James muttered, putting his arms out so it laid across the head of the couch and turning his head up to look at the ceiling. 

“What happened to being Mr. Positivity?” Krolia smiled as she pulled down the towel in her hand and turned to the table, her nose twitching and walking towards it. “As you’ve said before, we’ve gotten lucky this far, let’s see how far we can push it.”

James glanced at her back, seeing a long purple mark that seemed to stretch from her cheeks and dip down from her neck to towards her spine, disappearing beneath the red folds of her tank top. 

_Wonder how far down that mark goes?_

“Shut the fuck up,” James whispered as he mentally pinched himself. 

“You alright?” Krolia asked, a piece of French toast sticking out from the side of her mouth.

“I’m good,” James said, going over to Krolia and stuffing a piece of toast in his mouth as well. “The drawings are just driving me insane.”

“I wish I had the Galra database or the Blades’ well of information. It’d be a lot more useful than us trying to randomly guess what kind of images we’re trying to decipher.” Krolia’s face dropped, her previous cheery expression became sunken. 

“I think we have a solid story so far,” James held up his fingers listing off each of the things they think they’ve gotten figured out. “Lion comes to earth, how, we’re still trying to figure out. People are supposed to find it? After that, I think that’s it?”

“That’s not much compared to all of the drawings we’ve been across.” 

“It’s something.”

Krolia sighed as she tossed the last piece of bread into her mouth and chewed quietly. 

“Whatever we find, let’s hope it can help us understand this situation some more.”

James gave her a sympathetic look, “I know you don’t like going into situations without all of the information, but we’ll have to make do with whatever we get.”

Krolia merely nodded as she grabbed their traveling bags and started to pack their supplies. 

“You should get ready, we have a long day ahead of us.”

* * *

They must have visited at least half of the caves in the desert. Not that either of them were really counting. After finding another one of the signals coming from the cave, James parked the speeder right outside and the two ventured in. They did find more carvings of the Blue Lion, but it still felt the same as the others that they’ve found. 

“Anything new?” James asked, looking over his shoulder to see her stepping over some rocks to get a closer view of the markings and tracing her hand delicately over it. 

“I don’t know, I think all of those images are starting to just blend together in my head.”

“That makes two of us,” James laughed as he angled his flashlight and took out his camera. 

He managed to convince Krolia that the camera was a good idea (by convince he meant stubbornly refuse to let it go), so she allowed him to keep using it. The air between the two was quiet, which they didn’t mind, but James wanted to fill it with something besides their footsteps crunching over rocks, the snap of his camera, and Krolia’s tracker making low static sounds. James steeled himself and decided to jump at the question. 

“This may sound a bit out of the blue, but did you- were you ever in a relationship?”

The fact that he could hear his voice echo around the cave did nothing to boost his confidence in asking that question. Krolia was used to each of them asking the other odd questions when they were out looking for the lion. Compared to how mundane most of their searches turned out to be, the questions allowed them to have something to take their minds off of the current situation.

“Not that I mind the question, but what suddenly brought this up?”

“I ran out of other things to ask, and honestly, I barely comprehend half of the sciency terms you talk about,” James said as he held up a small holo screen and comparing what he saw to the wall. “Besides, I really wanna get the words “blue” and “lion” outta my head.”

“That’s fair, I suppose,” Krolia said as she leaned over to inspect some of the carvings. 

“I had a few, but they were just casual and nothing too serious. In the Blades, it’s even harder to establish a relationship beyond camaraderie and those who do just want a momentary escape from the stress,” she pressed on the button to her tracker, allowing it to scan the area for similar quintessence readings they got from the first cave. “What about you?”

“Me? Hm, I guess I had a couple of girlfriends, but nothing really went anywhere. I did try to grow a bear to impress this girl I liked in college… didn’t work.”

He heard a small giggle coming from the Galra woman who turned quickly to pretend she had seen something interesting before turning back with a straight face. 

“Why not?” Krolia turned and looked like she was inspecting James’ face. “Do your species not find those kinds of physical traits attractive?”

“Well one, I dropped out, and come on, you know it takes me weeks to even grow this much hair on my chin,” James gestured to his face, running his hand over his chin and tilting it to show Krolia. 

She stepped closer until she was standing right in front of him and placed her hand on his chin, looking perplexedly at it. 

“True, I’ve rarely seen you shave, but I thought it was just a lifestyle choice,” Krolia gripped his chin a little tighter and starting tilting his face around as if he were a creature up for examination. “I’ve seen some Galras managed to grow beards and mustaches, but those usually didn’t take too long to grow.”

He was desperately hoping that his face wasn’t burning up right now as he felt her smooth hands run across his face. He felt his breath hitch in his throat, and thankfully, it didn’t seem like Krolia heard it or noticed. James watched as her expression turned into a frown when she placed both hands on his face, squishing it with curiosity. 

“I didn’t think it would feel that prickly. Is this normal for all facial hair?”

“I wouldnth know,” he managed to reply in a calm tone. “Do Galra women grow mustaches or bearths?”

“No, we don’t. However, I have run into other female species that are capable of growing either one if they so wished,” Krolia replied absently, leaning closer to look at the hairs the same way she did when examining the markings on the wall. “It doesn’t seem like a very pleasant experience.”

“After a while you get used to it,” James said, trying not to stare to closely at her fingers and how her claws were gently pushing into his skin. 

A moment passed before Krolia seemed to notice the amount of personal space she was invading, especially how close their faces were when she looked up. Her eyes widened and she took a few steps back, clearing her throat and dusting her hands off. 

“What if if we can locate the source for these carvings? They all seem to be pointing somewhere, and we can narrow it down from there?” She looked back down at her tracker, tapping the screen with her fingertip. “We can see if we’ve got anything ground-breaking when we get back home.”

“Yeah, yeah, we can do that,” James replied a little too quickly, turning away and pretending that he was looking through his gear bag. “Should we look further back?”

“We’ve already searched most of the entrance, I don’t see why not.”

As they both went down deeper into the cave, they had to take out their flashlights to look around, it somehow made the whole place feel creepier. 

“See any carvings yet?”

“I just hear dripping water, is that normal?”

James aimed his flashlight up to the ceiling, trying to see if that’s where Krolia was hearing it from. He looked at the stalagmites (or was it stalactites? He could never get either of those correct), but didn’t see any clear signs of water coming from there. 

“All of these used to be under the ocean before it turned into a desert, so I guess there might be underwater reservoirs that weren’t entirely flushed out?”

Krolia didn’t seem to like the sound of that information as she adjusted the strap of her satchel. “Just stay near me, I don’t think this area is stable.”

He wasn’t complaining there. 

As they continued to look for more carvings, they inputed all of the information they could, but the deeper they went, the more the feeling of uncomfortableness increased in James’ gut. He started to trust it a bit more since Krolia crashed onto earth, but that was mainly because whenever he got that feeling, nothing good was going to happen. 

“Hey,” he said and came to a halt with Krolia standing a few feet in front of him, turning around and looking confused at why he was stopping. “I don’t think we should go any further.”

“Why not? We still have more of the cave to look at.”

“Just a feelin’,” James said, staring at the walls like he was afraid some hands would suddenly sprout out of it. 

“A feeling?” Krolia asked, turning her flashlight away so it wasn’t pointing at his face. “Sorry if this sounds rude, but I don’t know how we could really stop just because of a feeling.”

“Maybe we could-?”

James cut his words off and Krolia’s eyes widened in horror as she tried to steady herself against the wall. He thought it would just be a small tremor, but when it continued for long than ten seconds, he was already running over to Krolia and pulling her close. 

“What was-?” Krolia tried to ask before the cracking sounds got louder. 

Neither of them could get any more words out as the floor beneath them began to break apart and in the next moment, they screamed as the ground broke beneath them, hurling them into darkness. 

* * *

 

All she could see was black shadows and water. Her screaming wasn’t helping the situation especially since she couldn’t see anything. When she tried to see if James was next to her the water dipped down and they landed in a what felt like a large pool. She kept still to try and get over the shock, and then darted her eyes around the water to try and find James. She saw a murky figure next to her and quickly swimming her way towards it, wrapping her arms around James’ torso and kicking her way up as fast as she could.

If they had air, she would have snarked that he shouldn’t have brought so many items for their trip, but at the current moment, her lungs were already burning with the lack of oxygen, so she decided to hold that thought for later. Her hopes rose as they got closer and she started to kick her legs even harder. 

All she could think of was not about the fact that she could be drowning, or they could be loosing their materials. It was the fact that she could possibly loose James and it gave her the extra boost of energy to leave the water. She bursted through the surface, trying her hardest to cough up as much water as she felt she had swallowed. She also pulled James up, his head limply falling to her neck. 

After hurling both of their bodies onto land, Krolia turned James over, her heart nearly stopping when his eyes weren’t opening. 

“James…?” She whispered, her finger darting to the side of his throat to feel for a pulse. “James. Wake up. Wake up! _James_!”

She was extremely grateful to hear him weakly coughing up water as he blinked deliriously and staring at the Galra woman hovering over him. 

“You alright?” She asked, stopping herself from falling on top of the human and hugging him. Instead, she settled for weakly collapsing next to him, making him have to tilt his head to talk to her.

“Ne’er better,” James weakly replied. “I think I bumped my head somewhere and I got water up my nose.”

“Be thankful that it didn’t decide to drown you,” she instantly bit her tongue after those words, that’s what she had been worried about nearly thirty ticks ago. The thought of James drowning filled her with more dread than she knew what to do with, so she fell back into her mission mindset.

“I know we’re both wet and miserable right now, but we should find a way out of here. If this is the lion trying to give us a hint that we’re on the right path, I’ll have a few choice human words to say to it when we find it,” Krolia groaned coughing some more water. 

“Right behind you,” James said. “If the hint has to be killing us along the way, I know a word or to to teach ya so you can yell at the lion.” James said as he sat up and Krolia followed him soon after.  
“I’m honored,” Krolia said. “For now, let me get some light.”

As she sifted through her bag, she started to feel herself panic.

“My flashlight is gone.”

“Must have sunk into the pool,” James said and had to stop Krolia from attempting to dive into the water. “Don’t, it wasn’t waterproof so it was dead the second we fell in.” 

He went through his own bag as well, pulling out his camera, a pad of paper, a pencil, and a few other things. Krolia did the same, trying to keep herself calm as she counted the items that weren’t lost.

“I think my tracker’s ruined,” She held up her tracker and tapped against the screen, but the usual beeping that would come from it was dead. “As much as I want to lament, our main priority is to get out of here.”

“Well, if there’s a way down here, there must be a way out, right?”

Krolia looked around and pulled out her gauntlet, glad that she even decided to bring it. 

“I can get a scan of this current area and we’ll see where to go from there.”

After doing a short scan, she looked at the image shown on her holoscreen and pulled it up for James to see. 

“Huh, looks like there’s already a few escapes we can take,” he pointed to a few lines that lead away from their current location. “Good thing this place had multiple entry and exit points.”

Krolia stared down at her gauntlet, pushing her hair out of her face and looked at James. “Do you really think the lion was trying to tell us something?”

“Dunno, just had a weird feeling, but if it was, it has a terrible sense of trying to help others,” James said, grabbing his shirt and wringing as much water as he could out of it. “For now, we should just worry about heading home and restocking.”

Krolia nodded and they started to look for one of the tunnels that would get them out. As they searched, James tried to stay as close to her as possible, since Krolia’s gauntlet was the only thing providing them with any sort of light. 

“I get why you need to get all this information about the lion, but it doesn’t kinda freak you out that you have to go to such extreme lengths to do so?”

“We have a motto for that in the Blades, while the Galras chant is “Victory or death”, our is “Knowledge or death”.” She paused to check the screen and carefully walked forward. 

“Y’all seem pretty fixated on this whole “victory” or “death”. Surprised you haven’t come up with another option after ten thousand years,” James joked, and she knew he was just trying to ease the tension in the air as well as try to ignore the fact that they could have almost died today. 

“For the Galras, we either achieve our goals, or we die in the process of it. It’s no different for the Blades. The history behind our group is a little muddled, and some aren’t even sure who the original founder was. But what we seem to agree was that long ago, there were archivists of history amongst the Galra, collecting knowledge across the universe and trying to protect it. However, Zarkon’s reign is what started to put an end to all of that.”

“All of the knowledge we were collecting for future generations, was being replaced by quintessence mining and experiments on how to gain more of it. All of the people we would have traded knowledge for ended up either killed, or enslaved by Galra. I suppose like other rebel factions, the Blade of Marmora was formed and while we still strive for knowledge, we also try to help those from the clutches of the empire. If I don’t have all of the information, death is likely to follow, that’s whats so frustrating about this entire situation.”

She didn’t notice when James walked closer and took her hand, and it was strangely calming and helped her anchor back to the moment. 

“We’ll find it, I know we will.”

Krolia unconsciously squeezed his hand back, feeling more assured that she had been all day. 

“Maybe you should wait to say that until _after_ we get out of these caverns.”  
“And into dry clothes.”

Krolia laughed, “That too.”

* * *

 

What was the best way to get over a somewhat death defying traumatic memory? Go about your normal mundane routine and focus on buying things from the store. 

After they got home and changed into dryer clothes, James told Krolia he was going to buy some more supplies so she could make another tracker as well as more food. God knows, he felt like eating would be one of the few things to help him feel calmer after all that just happened. 

“Stupid lion, stupid signals. It couldn’t have picked a more convenient place to stay hidden, didn’t it?” James grumbled as he glared at a box of animal crackers. 

As his eyes glazed over the bare shopping list he made, at this point, he was just browsing to see if there was anything on sale that they might need later. Krolia had said she didn’t want anything when he headed out, but he felt like getting her something. 

“Looking for something in particular, sir?” James looked up to see one of the workers gesturing towards the flowers set up in clear plastic wrap on display. “You’ve been staring at these flowers for a pretty long time.”

“No, I was just, browsin’,” he had no idea why or how he even ended up here and he couldn’t think of a clearer excuse. 

“Sure you’re not thinking about someone?” The lady asked. “Especially since you were looking at the purple flowers in particular.”

“What? No, I was- purple’s my favorite… color?” James stuttered, trying not to feel embarrassed over the clerks’ ever growing grin. 

“Well, these flowers are asters, they’re pretty lovely this time of year. If you buy a bundle, it’s only five dollars.”

“I don’t need a bouquet, thanks,” James said, trying to move his cart away as quickly as he could. 

“What about just one flower then? If you want, I’ll sell it to you for like two dollars.” Before he could try and say something else, the clerk was already plucking a flower out and putting it in its own wrap, “These are really nice, and I’m sure your significant other would love it.”

“No, really I’m good.”

“Got you something,” James said and Krolia looked up from the book. 

“I told you that I didn’t need anything,” she said, looking at him with confusion. “How did this happen?” 

“If I’m being honest, I think I got tricked into buying this,” he remembered walking out of the store as if in a trance, unsure of how the aster got into his hand, and too confused to be fully invested in investigating the reason why. "And it was kind of, spontaneous purchase.” 

James felt the nervousness growing in his body, but he managed to bring the flower out of the bag and held it out for Krolia, “I thought you’d like this.”

Krolia stared at the plant, looking between it and James, wondering what was really happening. But at the same time, she was moved that he went out of his way to do this for her. 

“Oh, thank you,” she said, taking the flower and twirling it between her fingers. “I don’t have anything to put this in.”  
“Well, I was thinking you could either just put it in a glass cup for a while, or you can press it in a book.”  
“Press it?”

“It’s a technique some people use to preserve plants, and it’s kind of fun,” he walked over and lifted up the book she had put down. “You just put the flower in here, shut the book tight, and in a few days, _poof,_ you got yourself a pressed flower.”

Krolia stared at the flower a little longer. It felt like a bit of a waste to just stamp it now, but she wasn’t entirely sure she would trust herself to try and keep the plant alive for the next few days. 

“I’ll think about it,” She looked up at James, trying to find some kind of hint of his intentions on his face. “Is there any other reason you decided to get me a flower?”

“It kinda looks like you?”

Krolia had been slapped in the face before, and that comment reminded her of that feeling: discombobulated as well as shocked that something like that happened. 

“How?”  
James gently took it out of her hand and held it up to her skin. 

“See? Doesn’t the color kinda look the same?”

“I don’t know if that’s the real reason why you got it, but thank you for thinking of me,” She made a move to get the flower but James held a hand up. 

“I just wanna try somethin’,” he said and gently tucked the flower behind Krolia’s right ear. She felt her skin shiver as his fingers drifted around it, and when he took a step back, she wasn’t sure whether or not to be smiling or giving him one of her usual frowns. 

“Yeah, you look nice with it like that.”

Now she was sure she felt a blush creeping up on her face and even James seemed to pick up on the awkwardness of those words as he retreated to his grocery bags with a small flush on his face as well. 

“Anyway, I got a lot of stuff cheap today, and I didn’t even have to bring out all of the coupons I’ve been saving up.” He held up a jar for her to see, “See? Got this jam for four dollars.”

“Isn’t that a pickle jar?” Krolia asked, looking at the green vegetables floating in a sickly green liquid. 

“Oh, right, sorry, wrong jar. You know what, I’ll just put these all in the fridge, you want anything?”

“No, I just, need to check my things upstairs and get started on making another tracker.”

“Sounds good, I’ll bring those materials out in a minute,” James said as he walked with his arms full of groceries to the fridge and started to hastily place things on the shelves. 

Krolia walked up to their bedroom, looking into the cardboard box that James had given her for the spare ship parts she hadn’t used yet. But she couldn’t think straight with her face feeling like it was getting a fever, so she walked to the bathroom and splashed some water on her face. When she looked up to he mirror, she stared at her reflection, trying to see what James had smiled about. 

She did like the flower, and it did look nice in her hair. But she wasn’t sure if that was the reason why she was smiling so hard at it. She gently slipped the flower out of her hair and looked at the plant between her fingers, the smell and image of it warming her heart. 

Perhaps stamping it in that book wouldn’t be such a bad idea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed S7. Please don't spoil it for me, I'm not gonna see it 'til Thursday.  
> Kind of a short chapter this week, but I promise the next chapter should be pretty long.  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	10. Mistakes were Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search for the lion is coming to a close. So is the tension between the two, but getting there was never going to be that simple.  
> Angst ahead

While the shack didn’t exactly provide either of them with air conditioning, it was easier than laying the map they had on the dining table and trying to lean over it. Instead, James had placed it onto a headboard on the wall, circling the map they had of the area and highlighting the places they found the carvings with pencil. Said pencil was being tapped against his chin as he made one final sweep of the paper before stepping back and nodding. 

“Alright, so over the past couple of weeks we’ve located at least a handful of caves that had these lion carvings in them. Now, we just need to narrow down _where_ these signals are coming from.”

Krolia was sitting down on the couch, her fingers hovering over the small computer that James had made, looking at the data they managed to collect. She stared at the numbers on the screen, trying to figure out herself how they could narrow down the search. Each cave they went to brought them closer to finding the lion, but at the same time, it seemed to be trying to mislead them as well. They couldn’t clearly pinpoint the exact location of the lion, and they had already fallen into a fewfrustrating dead ends. 

“We should scour a few more caves, just to be safe. We don’t know if we saw everything there is out there.”

James understood that Krolia just wanted to be thorough, but at this point, he was getting tired of driving out to all of those caves and looking for something different even though they’ve seemed to have found all that they could. He was sure that the lion was toying with them, or at the very least, putting them on a wild goose chase because maybe it didn’t want to be found?

“There’s a few dozen we’ve got up on here,” James said, tapping the back of the pencil on one circle in particular. “You really think there could be more?”

“The carvings we’re most familiar with are always near the entrance of the cave, but never further back, no matter how far we walked,” Krolia looked at the inside of her wrist where faint teeth puncture marks could be seen. “I don’t think we’ve found everything the lion is hiding. I also didn’t think there would be creatures hiding in the far back that could live in these kinds of conditions.”  
“I’m sure that lizard was equally annoyed as you were after it bit you,” James said, glancing at the area where Krolia was taking to examining. “Lucky for us, it wasn’t poisonous, ‘cause that would be a real hard thing to explain to a doctor or poison control.”

“It was lucky I didn’t bring my knife with me that time,” she said, somewhat jokingly. “Still, my position still stands on looking for more carvings.”

“But I don’t know if there are any more caves to overturn when looking for more of these carvings.”

“There has to be,” Krolia said, conviction dripping form her voice. 

James sighed again as he took his pencil and tapped on a section of the map that they hadn’t touch yet. “Then tomorrow, we can look around here for some kind of signal and then try to narrow it down from there. That sound good?”

Krolia nodded, “Yes.” 

James looked at her as he twirled the pencil in his fingers. “You wanna take a break tonight? We’ve been goin’ at these for a few days and I think we could really use one.”

“Do I get to choose the activity this time?” Krolia asked, they had taken “breaks” before, most of them lead to doing something just for fun or “goofing around” as James would put it. “I don’t think us trying to hit the bottles from a post would be as entertaining as it was the first time.”

“Well, you’re better with that knife than I am, and I used a rock.” James pointed out, holding his index finger up trying to make his point. 

“Still beat you.” Krolia giggled

“Okay, that’s it, I’m choosing tonight.”

Krolia smiled as James held out a hand to make her stop. She did feel a little bad for teasing him so mercilessly… for like half a tick. 

“If you want, I can teach you how to handle a knife. I’ve taught plenty of new Blade members on how to handle their knives when they join.”

“No, we’re not gonna do another competition this time. We’re doing something completely calm.” 

James seemed a bit relieved to say that aloud as his shoulders became less tense. 

“So, what’s this great plan of yours?” She tilted her head away from the computer screen. 

“It’s a surprise,” he said and winked. 

Krolia tried to pretend her heart didn’t just skip there. When did this start happening? So far, she managed to keep her face neutral and show no response.  
“You do realize the last time you said something would be a surprise, I nearly had my tongue burnt off?” Krolia remembered trying a dish she had made and tried a spice that James had said wasn’t that spicy. It was. And she was certain he had lied to her on purpose. 

“For the record, the dish wasn’t that spicy,” James put his hand to his hips, but still held his good natured smile. “Trust me on this.”

Krolia put her hands up in surrender, “Fine, you know I trust you.”

 

“Well, isn’t this… something?” Krolia looked down at the blanket James had laid down on the ground, trying to lay it out evenly and find any stray rocks underneath. A million different vibes were running around in her head, and she was waiting to her what Jame’s idea was before internally panicking. 

“Thought we could view the stars tonight, that’d be nice, right?”

“We can see the stars just fine from our bedroom,” Krolia pointed out. “Or from the roof if you really wanted to.”

“Um… I’d rather not break a bone or potentially my neck out here, so the roof’s a definite no. Besides, you ever lay on your back and stare at the stars? Life-changin’.”  
She watched as James made some sort of sweeping gesture with his hand as he said “life changin’”. After he seemed satisfied with his work, he sat down and patted the empty side next to him, inviting Krolia over. She complied and walked over, sat down and leaned back on her hands to stare up at the night sky. Although she’d seen these starts for a long time, it still amazed her. 

“Let’s see, what can I find?” James began to say to himself as he looked up and started to trace the dots with his finger tips. “I think that one might be the big dipper and this one here was…”

“Do you actually know the constellations you’re looking for?” Krolia asked as she looked over to him. She took the short moment of silence from him as confirmation. 

“Hm, not really, I was just gonna make up pictures as I went along, like a peacock or a cow,” he turned to see Krolia giving him an odd look that clearly said she had no idea what he was even talking about. “You’ve seen cows before, right?”

“I think on one of those nature channels I have, but I could be wrong,” Krolia leaned over on her side and drew a picture in the dirt with her nail of what she thought James was referring to and allowed him room to lean over to look. “Are you referring to one of these?”

“Yup, that’s a cow,” James replied with a nod. 

“So your people call kalteneckers… co—ws?” She couldn’t help but shake her head again at the oddities that earth had to offer. “You humans are strange.”

“We’re definitely unique there,” James laughed as he laid down and Krolia stared at him. “What? I think you can see it better if you lay on your back to look at them.”

Krolia thought for a moment before following him. Even though it was a little more comfortable on her back, she still couldn’t see anything besides stars. As she settled down and thought James would just leave them to just indulge in the silence, he decided to speak again. 

“Should we play the question game?”

As much as she didn’t mind the “question game” when they couldn’t find anything to read, watch, or listen to, she wasn’t sure if she was in the mood for it at the moment. Staring into nothingness seemed a little more entertaining than answering more questions. 

Krolia groaned as she looked at James in the corner of her eye, “Are we really doing this now?” 

“You didn’t mind it last time. Let’s just give it a try and see where it goes from there.”  
Figuring that it wasn’t worth arguing over, Krolia closed her eyes to think and said the first idea that came to mind. 

“If you were to travel somewhere, where would you go?”

James turned his head to look over at the Galran woman, “You mean specifically here on earth, or somewhere up there?"  
He vaguely gestured to the sky. 

Krolia couldn’t help but chuckle, “Tell me about somewhere on Earth, and then I’ll think of a place you might like that could be in space or is similar.”

“Oh, I guess we just invented ourselves a new game,” James said making a small whistle sound through his teeth. 

“Don’t get too attached,” Krolia said. “You still need to answer my question.”

“Alright, alright, let me think,” James made a small humming sound from his throat and Krolia watched his Adam’s apple move as he did it. “I guess… I’d like to go to some place with lots of snow?”

“That’s not very specific,” Krolia said, and lightly nudged James with her elbow.

“Well, we’ll treat this like a warmup round. I didn’t travel much as a kid, and I always thought it would be nice to go to some place with snow. Then I’d make all the snow forts, snowmen and snow angels I wanted,” he turned to Krolia. “Anythin’ like that up in space?”  
Krolia hummed herself as she thought, “There were certainly many planets that have snow on them. Many of them however, are either too cold to easily support life, or too difficult to get our technologies to work on them. Those planets that I looked at certainly didn’t hold a lot of interest for the empire if there wasn’t quintessence to mine.”

“Guess being part of the empire doesn’t mean you get many vacation days to find a nice resort,” James dropped his voice a bit, feeling a little disappointed.

“But… I did here of this one planet from some gossip that is covered in ice plants that managed to thrive despite their conditions. The flowers are said to have medicinal purposes, as well as being used for foods,” Krolia added. It was hard not to turn off that part of her mind that either made things all about information that was gathered, or whether or not it would be a useful investment. 

“Hm, that sounds real nice,” James replied, putting his arms behind his head. “I’d love to be able to travel in space just to see it.”

“Maybe if your human technology advances fast enough, one day you might be able to.” Krolia highly doubted it, but people were allowed to dream.

“My turn,” James said and didn’t seem to take too long to think of his question. “Where’s a place you’d like to visit on earth?”

“Are you allowed to use my question?” Krolia asked with a small grin. 

“I guess I am.”

Krolia was quiet again as she thought and then answered, “I suppose I’d like to see one of Earth’s forests, they seem like nice places.”

“Any forest specifically?”

“You weren’t that specific with your choice, I didn’t think I had to be specific with mine.”

James sighed, “Alright, since this is just the first round, that’s fair. I only know a couple forests ‘cause of the camping trips with my dad, so I’m wouldn’t be that helpful. I’d love to take you to one of ‘em if we could.”

Krolia let those words sit on her chest, it was already a little hard having to stay out in the desert with only James for company, but she wasn’t sure if she’d like it if people suddenly went into an uproar upon seeing an alien. She pushed aside those thoughts as she started to think of a follow up to her answer. 

“In regards to planets, there are actually so many that I didn’t really keep track of. But there was actually a forest near my hometown when I was younger that I played in a lot with the other children. Then a large section of it was taken away to be used as a housing facility for the soldiers weapons and other things.” She stared up at the stars, avoiding looking over to James so she wouldn’t have to see his reaction. 

“Oh, that kinda sucks,” he was very eloquent today. 

“Yeah,” she said. “It sucked.”

“I guess you don’t want to ask the next question?” 

“I’d prefer if you come up with a different topic for the time being.”

“Alright… what animals do you like?”

Krolia just had to laugh. “Is it possible for me to skip a question?”

“Hadn’t gotten that far into thinking about the rest of the rules,” James admitted, laughing along with her. “But if you don’t want to be asked that question, it’ll take me a couple of ticks to think of another one.”

“Don’t worry, I was just joking.” Krolia said as she started to think of her answer. 

They continued on this for a while, asking the other on whatever topic came to their mind. James apparently got his scar from a fist fight when he was younger, Krolia provided that the markings on her cheeks were hereditary, and she got them from her mother who passed in childbirth. They went through at least ten other questions before Krolia thought of something that she wanted to ask James. 

“Would you want to travel to space?”

“I mean, a lot of people would want to travel to space if given the option. I wasn’t smart enough to be able to figure out all the math stuff,” James answered as he stretched out his arm and laid them back down on the blanket. “That’s why we have the Garrison and so many programs focused on getting us to space. It sounds really interesting from all the stuff you’ve told me on our down time.”

“There are a lot of beautiful things out there,” Krolia admitted. “Although I wasn’t able to really able to enjoy any of them since I was constantly on my missions or spying on the empire.” 

James drank in those words as he looked at the stars and asked Krolia a follow up question.

“What about you? Do you still want to go back to space?”

Krolia wasn’t sure how much she really wanted to go back to space. With the idea of actually getting to find the lion, of course she would have to think about a way to contact the Blades to fill them in on that information. All of James’ tools would be able to help her get a message out somehow once they got to that hurdle, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to leave earth. She had grown attached to it, despite only knowing one minuscule section of the actual entire planet. 

She shouldn’t have grown to care for something like this. She shouldn’t have wanted to remain here in order to possibly protect it in any way that she could. But she was, and the thought of having to give it all up wasn’t something she really wanted to acknowledge at this moment. 

“I feel like Earth is one of those things I really get to enjoy without having to worry about dying every other day,” she said with sincerity. “It’s peaceful, something I wasn’t able to have with war always on our minds.”

She felt a small tug at her pink and she looked down to see James’ interlocking his pinky with hers. Krolia smiled as she moved her hand more so he could gently hold it. When she turned her chin up to look at James, he was giving her such a fond look she wanted curl up closer to him, but the hand holding was all she was comfortable with at the time. 

There were times when a simple gesture from James said more than anything else. He gave her a smile that she returned and they let themselves drift into silence as they continued to stare at the stars until it got too cold and they had to head back inside. 

* * *

 

It was small things she started being more aware of. Smiles he had when working on his hover bike, eyes widening in fascination when finding something new in the caves, or how he laughed when they were watching a show that did something particularly funny. 

All of that made her heart warm and she’d steal glances of whenever those moments were likely to happen. Whenever James almost caught her, she had to pretend she was staring at something else or going back to reading. 

This felt wrong. They were just friends, weren’t they? Well, it wasn’t like they always called each other that, but wasn’t that the very definition of the kind of relationship they currently had? She growled to herself as she leaned over a newspaper and acted like she was invested in the crossword puzzle. 

She never felt so betrayed by her own body before. 

* * *

 

“I need you to bring up the signal we got and turn up the volume.” Krolia instructed, looking at the computer screen after she had entered all of the data they got from today and now they were trying to pinpoint the location of the lion. 

James did as she instructed and she looked closely at the wave reading she had up on the screen. All of these caves were linked to the lion, they just needed to find a similar wavelength— 

“Stop!” Krolia said as she found another cave that seemed to be leading towards somewhere further in the desert. She stood up, walked as quickly as she could to the board they had and made a line with the pencil to a coordinate point they had written onto it. “That’s the third one we’ve found…”

“Should we do one more and see if we can get the pattern?”

“Well, these were the last caves we looked at, so I let’s hope these will count.”

They repeated the process again, and after Krolia made the last line she stood back to look at their map. They had about four lines coming from the caves they found and they all seemed to be pointing towards a source of quintessence, but now the only problem was actually looking around that area. She drew a wide circle using some of the lines that were close and frowned. 

“So… the quintessence readings should be coming from around this area over here, which could mean that’s where the lion is hiding.”

“It’s kind of close to the water. Didn’t you say the blue lion was affiliated with water or something?”  
“Yes, it is.”

“I guess it kinda makes sense for it to be all the way out there,” James dropped his head in a tired sigh. “Now I wish we actually looked out near the water first. Shit, we could have saved us months of time searchin’.”

“We only took five months, I don’t think it’s that bad.” Krolia grunted as she stretched her shoulders. She was tired from all of the running, searching and typing she had to do today. “Now that we have an actual lead… we might just find the lion.”

While she wanted to be so sure on this, she wanted this to be right, she was hesitant. They had hit dead ends, found readings that actually lead to nowhere, and realized that they had made a mistake in their calculations before. What’s to say this isn’t just another one of those disappointing setups just waiting to happen?

“Krolia?” James voice brought her back as she looked up to see him staring at her with concern and with a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not thinking too hard on this, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” she lied and rubbed her eyes. “I’m just tired.”

“Well, at least we have an idea for what to do. We’ll just relax for tonight and be prepared for tomorrow.”

“Yes, I’d like that.” 

True to his word, they spent the rest of the afternoon until dusk just sitting down and letting that information settle. Krolia chose to read one of the books James had bought for her, a science fiction novel that she found a bit laughable when comparing it to the actual technology she’d seen used, and her reading had gotten good enough where she can read the lines of text quickly. James on the other hand seemed restless as he was either tidying up the kitchen, rearranging his bookshelves, or just staring at his shelf of music. 

“Try sitting down and breathing, that can help calm you down,” Krolia said, looking up to her companion. 

“Nah, I don’t feel like sitting down, this might calm my nerves more.”

She watched as James stared at his record player and picked out a disk. He placed it onto the record and started to let the music play. When he walked over to her, he outstretched one of his hands and bowed slightly. 

“May I have this dance?”  
Krolia remembered hearing this line from one of those cheesy human romantic movies, and couldn’t help laughing. She set her book down and gave him an incredulous expression. 

“Really?”  
“What? I thought it’d be nice to teach you how to dance.”

She tried not to question that much further as she sighed, standing up and taking his hand, trying not to let her smile stretch and wider. As she allowed James’ hand to go to her lower back, readjusting her arms and then giving her a few pointers on how to move her feet. She stumbled a couple of times and wasn’t that comfortable being so close to James like this, despite having slept in the same bed together for so long. That, and the other reason. After a few moments, they were gently swaying to the music playing behind them. 

“Was there another occasion I happened to miss that brought this up?” Krolia inquired, meeting Jame’s eyes as she looked up, and attempted to avoid the coffee table in the small living room. 

“I can’t have a reason to want to teach you to dance?”

“No, most of the time you want to do things, you usually have some kind of motive behind it.”

James chuckled, “Okay, you wanna try and guess it then?”

“Hmm, you’re restless and just need an outlet to help you relax?” Krolia asked as she manage to avoid stepping on his foot.

“Nope, try again,” James said as he twirled her around and really tried so hard not to giggle at that when she felt his hands go to her lower back again. She couldn’t stop for a couple minutes as they continued to gently sway back and forth, with what little room they had to move. 

“Fine.” Krolia said, rolling her eyes as she thought for another answer, "You’re…. Celebrating something?”

“Gettin’ warmer,” James sang as he spun them around again. 

She pursed her lips and pretended to give him a disparaging look. 

“I hope the reason isn’t because it’s about us possibly finding the lion soon?”  
James paused to consider his next words, “No, what I was going to say was that I have a good feeling about our situation on finding the lion.”  
“You said that the last ten times you had a good feeling on finding the lion.”

James tried to act nonplussed at this accusation. “Well, this time’s different.”  
“Said that too.”

“Can’t you just let me win this one?” James asked, but his voice wasn’t annoyed. “I can’t be wrong _that_ many times.”

“Then where’s the fun in that if I can’t tease you about it?” Krolia asked keeping her voice playful. 

He turned his head away and pouted his lips, “Rude.”

They continued to dance slowly, moving as close as they could to the music, and Krolia felt comfortable enough to lean her head on his shoulder. She wondered if this was how children felt when being rocked to sleep. As James spun them around again, she had to move her head away and when looked back to James, their faces were now so much closer to each other than they were at the beginning. 

He suddenly stopped swaying and Krolia had to catch herself before she ran into him. Once she steadied herself and looked up, she was staring at his face, looking confused. She noticed the blush on his face and her eyes somehow started to wander down to his lips. It wasn’t helping that James wasn’t even responding to her in any way and seemed just as dazed as she was. Their arms dropped, even though the music was still playing. Yet for some reason, she couldn’t hear it, all of her attention was focused on James, and him alone.

If she could go back in time, she probably would have kicked herself for doing this, but something in her told her to get closer to James. 

She leaned forward (while standing slightly on her toes), slowly enough that James could pull away if he wanted to, but when he didn’t she continued onward. As she could feel his breath on her lips, she hesitated for a moment before finally taking the chance and closing the distance. 

His lips felt a little chapped against her own, and she could still taste the dinner they had, but it wasn’t bad. It felt… familiar, and warm. It felt safe. She felt safe. A buzz of energy was running through her skin, the same kind she felt when James would brush a hand against her skin or give her a smile that she knew was just because that’s how he was, but it still had an odd effect on her. 

As much as she was enjoying this moment, she didn’t dare herself to try and go in for another kiss, and she wasn’t sure what James’ reaction was. So she carefully pulled away and opened her eyes, allowing some distance between the two of them again. But just as she allowed the light of the room to come into her eyes, she instantly regretted ever allowing her vision to be clear. 

His reaction was… she couldn’t tell. It seemed a mix between befuddled and shocked. Like that wasn’t what he was expecting, but also something he maybe didn’t want. She felt the acid burning in her chest, especially once James hands were pulled away from her body and the way his eyes widened didn’t make her feel any better. 

Did she read the mood wrong? Did she make a mistake? Was this not how he felt? She took a step back, and he didn’t try to stop her, in fact, he didn’t move at all. Her eyes started to burn, and she was sure it wasn’t from the lights. When she tried to ask or explain what happened her voice refused to work. 

That made it so much worse. 

“I… I’m going to retire now, we need to have enough energy for tomorrow.” The words didn’t come out as calm or clear as she thought, and instead they were rushed and scared.

She meant to just quickly walk up the stairs as she avoided any kind of eye contact with James, but instead her legs bolted her up the wooden boards. As she entered their room, she quickly shut the door behind her, feeling her heart beating too hard to be healthy and her palms feeling extremely clammy. Once she fell onto the bed she gained back her sanity and she hated how her first gut reaction to the slightest bit of rejection from James caused her to flee like her life would be endangered if she stayed down there any longer. 

It just occurred to her that James could just open the door if he wanted to talk to her about what just happened, and she wasn’t sure if she would feel prepared for that. In fact, she was already forming an escape plan, one that would lead her to jump out the window and run out into the desert to find a cave to sleep in for the night. 

“Why am I acting like this?” She muttered, stuffing her face into the pillow and was tempted to see if it could muffle a scream if she tried. 

The only answer she could come up with was the fact that she was afraid of losing James like that time they nearly drowned in the caves. The image of him passed out and his lungs possibly filled with water terrified her for a long time, and even now, it hurt her to think she might have lost him then. That’s when all of this started, right? But even that felt like an awful lie she was trying to paint as the truth. 

When she heard no noise downstairs, her mind began to aimlessly come up with different fantasies of how James would tell her how he doesn’t feel the same and would stil like to be close to her, or how he’d avoid her forever. Krolia groaned as she pulled at her hair, knowing full well what she was feeling but too scared to admit it out loud. 

She loved James. 

She loved him. 

She truly, genuinely loved him.

Those sparks that she’d feel when they were together, the smile’s he’d give her that would suddenly make her days seem brighter, how he always knew when to ask if she was alright. She loved all of it. Now that she had a moment to think, she wondered if she should have waited a little longer to allow James a chance to reciprocate if that’s how he felt. Yet the negative part of her brain asked how that would have been such a good idea when he didn’t even seem to reciprocate anything beyond a partnership. 

She had prior relationships before where it lead to some romantic interactions, so why was this so different? She’s handled rejections and being rejected before, so why did James not reciprocating make her heart feel like it was being stabbed with a piece of ice?

She didn’t notice until she felt the pillow, but tears were running down her face. It was hot, it stung her eyes, and she wanted to make it stop. Rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand didn’t work, and she was so frustrated she wanted to punch the headboard, but took to digging her nails into her palms instead. 

Weak. She was so weak. She’d allowed all of those walls she put up to keep herself safe for various reasons go down, and look at where that lead her? 

Krolia curled herself into a tight ball, looking over her shoulder as if expecting James to be there, but he wasn’t. Even when she looked at the bedroom door, she didn’t hear footsteps coming up the stairs or anyone moving around. 

Another frustrated growl came from her throat as she tossed the pillow to the opposite wall, threw the blankets over her and tried to bury herself amongst the fabric. If James came up to talk to her the next morning, at least she could smother herself to death by then. 

She hated how she felt so alone and wanted James to be beside her to make it go away. Krolia wrapped her arms around herself and willed her thoughts to be on breathing or training exercises she would do with the Blades. She just needed to be calm, she needed to be in control of herself. In the end, she went to sleep with more troubled thoughts and feeling even worse than where she started. 

* * *

 

Stupid. 

He felt so stupid for not trying to clear up the misunderstanding that passed over Krolia’s eye’s, but he had been too dumbstruck to fully comprehend what had just occurred. In fact, he was sure his brain short circuited, and his spirit or whatever was ejected out of his body and he was viewing that moment from a third perspective. He still couldn’t believe that it had happened. 

She had kissed him. 

On the lips. 

And he said absolutely, _nothing_.

He had no way to react to that. Last he checked, he wasn’t sure if Krolia felt the same way about him and took her teasings as friendly things or mild flirtations at best. He was sure he would have to just get over his attraction to her in due time, but time was either moving too fast, or just being a bitch. 

James spent a couple of minutes standing as still as a statue, to then sitting on the couch going over ways he could have reacted better to the situation. He was worried Krolia might be trying to smother herself at this very moment because of how he reacted (or lack of reaction), but he couldn’t make himself go upstairs to do it. It didn’t feel like the right thing to do at the moment.

Even though he wanted to go up and talk to Krolia, to tell her he wasn’t rejecting her, and how he felt the same; he also knew that if he tried to talk to her now, she wouldn’t listen or think he’s pitying her. The worst thing she could do if he tried to talk to her was either throw a pillow at his head, or accidentally toss her knife. While he wasn’t afraid of the risks, his body kept telling him to stay put and think it over. 

James groaned as he let gravity pull him down as he laid on the couch, feeling pathetic and giddy at the same time. He stared at the living room lights, and couldn’t think of anything else but Krolia’s lips pressed against his own and the look of horror crossing her face. He pressed his hands against his face, trying to muffle the little grunt that came out and when he let go, he thought his face might have turned red from how hard he was pressing his hands against it. 

“Dammit,” he said, and that seemed to be the only thing he could make himself say. 

The more he thought, the more he was sure that smoke was pouring out of his ears. When his mind went back to thinking about the kiss, his face started to burn, and it wasn’t making him feel any better. 

He decided that it would be better to actually address this problem tomorrow, because if they tried to do anything now, they would probably say or do things they would regret. That was the only consoling thought he had as he closed his eyes and tried not to think of Krolia’s lips on his and how he would have liked to continue had his brain not decided to blank on him in that moment. 

He growled in frustration, tempted to knock his head if that would dislodge that memory but tried to just force himself to sleep. Only after he tossed a blanket on himself, smashed a pillow on his head and finding his happy place did he feel remotely better. 

In truth, he could barely sleep at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy frickin' quiznak, that's the first time I wrote a 6k chapter for a fic. But I promised a long chapter and I delivered.  
> Binged S7 with my friends and while I think it was okay on my first watch, I enjoyed it a bit more rewatching some episodes.  
> I'm going to continue writing this fic because I want to hold onto the shreds of positivity in this fandom.  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	11. Up to Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The air between the two is addressed, and the thing they've been searching for has finally been discovered.

It was morning, and Krolia still felt exhausted. If it was at all possible, she still didn’t want to go downstairs and be greeted by James. While it would make the atmosphere between the two of them all the more awkward, going down to confront it would just make it infinitely worse. Maybe it was the lack of sleep talking, but staying in bed to avoid James was starting to look like an even more promising possibility. 

However, her mission oriented mind convinced her that she had to get up sooner or later since they were so close to finding the blue lion. Dragging herself out of the bed felt like she was trying to lift her body up after training to hard with the Blades, and she only wished that was why she was feeling like this. 

_Just act normal_ , Krolia thought. _As long as you don’t try and make any of this weird, or bring up what happened, things should go back to normal and we can move on with our lives_. 

She ignored a small part of her brain calling her a liar as she trudged downstairs to find James still asleep on the couch. While she wasn’t sure if she had gotten up a little earlier than James had, she didn’t really mind. In fact, she actually knelt down next to him so she could almost poke his cheek if she wanted to. For a moment, she considered trying to wake James up, but thought it would be better if she let him sleep for a while longer. It seemed rare to see him this relaxed, and after all she put him through, it’s a wonder that he hasn’t lost his sanity yet. 

Her mind began to wander and think of how she wouldn’t mind seeing something like this for the rest of her days on earth and she nearly face planted onto the bed. She slapped her face with her hand in retaliation to those thoughts and muffled a groan came out. She was becoming so pathetic. 

“…ngh, Krolia?” 

Her eyes shot up in surprise to see James stirring and yawning as he rubbed at his eyes. 

“Didn’t think you’d wake up before me,” his voice sounded rough as he tried to wake himself up. 

“This wouldn’t be the first time,” Krolia smiled as he slowly got up and stretched. “I’ll make breakfast today, so you can rest.”

“Wait,” James said as he finally sat up and tried to meet Krolia’s eyes.“Look, uh, about what happened last night…” 

_Here we go,_ Krolia thought, her eyes and stomach dropping further than she thought was physically possible. 

“If you don’t wanna talk about it right now, that’s fine, but I just feel like we should both understand where we both stand on this entire… situation.” He gestured between the two of them. 

_Situation_ , _is that what we’re going to call it?_

Krolia wanted to not feel so put-down by the way James described her kissing him, but after the way she left him, she couldn’t really blame him.

She took a deep breath to steady herself before she answered James. 

_“_ I don’t want our relationship to get anymore complex than it already is _._ It’s just… I’m not that good at opening up to others. With the Blades, we usually let our actions speak over our words, but I didn’t think it would be so different for others.”

“I’m sorry about what happened last night, and how I didn’t give you time to let either of us explain how we felt.” Krolia stood up and crossed her arms, trying not to make eye contact with James. “You can give me an answer later, but for now, let’s just let it go.”

James made a face like he wanted to say something else, but his face dropped and he nodded, “Okay.”

“I’ll go get breakfast started,” Krolia said as she walked towards the fridge and pulled out things like eggs, bacon, and then went for toast while grabbing a jar of jam. 

As she set the pan on the stove and started to heat it over the flame James walked passed her to start a pot of coffee for himself. 

“Are you that tired?” Krolia asked, he normally wouldn’t drink coffee unless he either didn’t sleep that well. She decided not to dwell any deeper on those thoughts. 

“Sort of, that and if my gut’s right, we should be getting that lion today. I wanna be awake for all of that when it happens.”

Krolia smiled as she cracked an egg over the pan and listened to it sizzle, “We’ll just have to wait and see if your instincts are correct.”

After setting up their plates and putting their food down the table, they started to discuss their plan of action as he spread the map onto the table. 

“Since we narrowed our search down to this particular area over here, all we need to do is fly over and search. After that, it should be smooth sailing from there on out.”

“If our calculations are correct,” Krolia said, biting into her toast and hearing a loud crunch coming from it. “Still, this is the closest we’ve gotten in months, so I suppose we’ll just have to search and see.”

“That’s pretty much our entire plan,” James admitted as he tapped his finger over the paper on the area they had circled. “After we eat, we’re off on another adventure.”

Once their plates were cleaned, James set off to clean them in the sink and Krolia went upstairs to fetch any supplies they may need to carry. After those two bags were ready, she brought them downstairs and they were good to go. As they climbed up on the speeder, she was surprised at how not uncomfortable the whole thing felt. 

It was still a little weird that she was treating most of their interactions as professionally or platonically as possible as she wrapped her arms around James’ waist when he started up the engine of the speeder and looked back for Krolia’s ok sign. She gave him a knowing nod and felt the machine rumble to life and in a few ticks, they were off into the desert, hopefully on their last expedition. 

* * *

 

“Got anything?” James asked as Krolia held up her tracker into the air. 

“Nothing too strong, it’s similar to the caves, but that’s not saying much.”

They had driven around their designated area in hopes of getting a signal, and so far, nothing too big had appeared. She truly didn’t want this trip to be for nothing, but if that was what the inevitable outcome, she blamed herself more for hoping than focusing on the facts. 

“We should move onto the next area then if you can’t find somethin’,” James spoke, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. “I don’t think either of us wanna get sunburnt today.”

Krolia was ready to move on when it felt like small spark went off in the back of her skull and she looked down at her tracker. It was acting stranger, and it was definitely reacting to something. 

“Wait,” she stared at the line getting wilder when she turned to the right. “I think there’s something over here.”

As she walked towards that direction, the static became louder and her heart started to beat faster. She stopped when she got towards the edge of the cliffside and had to move her tracker around more to find the signal. 

“I think the signal is coming… from that cave over there,” Krolia said and pointed down towards the entrance that seemed less than a mile away. As long as they could traverse the steep incline of the mountainside, they were closer to their goal than ever. 

James leaned over and saw it too. She handed the tracker to him and held it towards the cave, and when he moved it away, the signal got weaker, “I’ll be damned. We actually got somethin’.”

They both found a safe pathway down and walked as carefully as they could, with Krolia leading and James holding the piece of technology tightly in his fist. They trekked closer to the entrance, and by now, the tracker was going crazy. 

“The lion is definitely in there,” Krolia said as they stood at the gaping hole. 

She wasn’t sure why her body froze, but it did. Was she still scared that they were at a dead end and they weren’t any closer to their goal? Or was it the fact that she just simply didn’t like the feeling she felt was emitting from the darkness? However, she felt a hand on her shoulder and saw James hand on it, his face trying to be reassuring. 

“We came this far together, we’re gonna finish it together.”

Krolia felt so reassured with those words and took a step forward. James followed, and soon, they were covered in dim darkness, the shade cooling them from the beaming sun. The further down they went, the more she could feel her skin pricking. 

“Don’t mean to sound like I’m tryin’ to spook you, but I have a really weird feeling about this place.”

“Maybe it’s the lion’s quintessence,” Krolia said, glad that she wasn’t the only one feeling a but creeped out herself. “It’s sort of like how you humans can feel electricity in the air sometimes, quintessence is kind of like that.”

“Remind me to never touch this quintessence stuff if I ever come across it.”

Somehow, the cave wasn’t getting any darker, in fact, it was getting brighter. Without much of a choice, they continued to follow that light, and then, came upon a sight Krolia never thought would be possible in their lifetime. They had found the blue lion. 

Krolia stared up at the lion in awe, at loss for the words to describe how she felt seeing the machine sitting right in front of her, protected by a light blue spherical particle barrier. She remembered the first time she saw the Red lion, how almost uncomfortable it looked being stored like a ship in the Galra hangar, but its counterpart looked proud to be where it was. It looked like it was at home, and was greeting them as they approached. 

They both slowly walked up to the machine, it seemed larger than life, too otherworldly to feel real. Krolia had seen many grand ships in her tenure amongst the empire, but nothing could really compare to this ancient beast who seemed to be smiling down at them, but she could just be a little paranoid of it. 

She finally found her voice and spoke to James as he walked up closer to inspect it, “ I never thought I'd see another lion in my lifetime.”

James seemed as equally stupefied as her, taking a moment to reply. 

“You’ve been telling about this ship for months, but this is beyond words,” he said, tearing his eyes away from the spectacle in front of him to look at his companion. “Are you sure you don’t want me to contact the Garrison? They could”  
Krolia’s face dropped as she made her concern known, “We’ve discussed this. It could put your entire civilization in jeopardy.”

While his face turned from curious to worried, Krolia wasn’t sure if that was because of what she said or because he knew that that was the answer she was going to give. Or maybe something else entirely. He seemed to be steeling himself for her next response as he asked her his next question. 

“Does this mean you're gonna contact your people and continue your mission?”

She could feel the hurt in his voice, something hidden in his words that were telling her that if she were going to leave earth to rejoin the Blades, he wasn’t going to stop her. 

Krolia looked to the ground, choosing her words carefully. She had thought about this moment for a long time, the steps she would need to take if she ever found the Blue Lion’s whereabouts and how she would get this information to the Blades. Had he asked her this question when she first crashed on earth, she would have given him every little detail of how she would contact her fellow Blade members, giving them the location of the ship, and then proceed with asking them to get her a ship so she could leave. 

But that’s not what she was going to do. She didn’t want to leave earth. She would have been fine with lying to herself by saying that she was only one of two people who knew the dangers that would follow the Voltron lions, and needed to stay here in order to protect it. Yet deep down, she knew it was because she didn’t want to leave James’ side. She wanted to stay on earth with the human she fell in love with, who made her feel safe and helped her forget the fact that she had been fighting in an unending war with the stress of protecting those close to her on her mind. 

Was this a selfish thing to do? Perhaps it was, but if Kolivan were here, he’d scoff and say that she never really followed the Blades code if she felt the situation at hand didn’t follow what she wanted. Krolia gave herself another tick to think of her answer and as she spoke, she considered each word she said.

“My ship being destroyed was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn’t go back, even if I could,” she walked forward to get closer to the lion and James, staring up at the beasts’ eyes as if it would be the judge of her actions. She secretly hoped it could understand her, so it knew she meant everything she said. “I have a new mission now. I’m going to stay here and protect the Blue lion.”

She should have expected James to react the way he did, but for some reason, it still surprised her. He gently took her hand, and she looked down at the familiar warmth spreading across her palm. She then fixated her eyes to his, and he gave her one of those fond smiles that always seemed to brighten her world. 

“I want to help,” he said gently, and she felt her heart beat a little faster as those words washed over her. 

She gently clasped her hand against James’, letting herself smile before tentatively walking forward so she was a few inches away from James. She wanted so much to nestle her head onto his shoulder and just bask in the moment, to let all of those nerves the piled on her the night before to slowly seep out of her body. 

“You’ve already helping me so much,” she said and James also leaned in closer so their foreheads were touching. 

“I still want to help however I can,” James replied, looking into Krolia’s eyes. “I want to be next to you, I want to be able to make you feel safe.” 

“What if I told you that you already accomplished all of that?”

“I’d think you were giving me too much credit,” James joked but tilted his head more so he could nuzzle in closer to Krolia. 

She was quiet for a moment, as she let the warmth from their contact seep in. 

“So I’m taking that this is your answer?”

“I’ve been thinking about how to tell you all of this without messin’ it up,” James said. “Been mullin’ it over all night and I kinda ran out of steam when I fell asleep tryin’ to rethink the whole thing.”

“Didn’t have a back up speech prepared?” Krolia teased. 

“Didn’t think I’d make it this far, to be honest,” James replied, causing Krolia to laugh. 

“I’m sorry for all of the turmoil I put us in,” Krolia said, moving her thumb gently across Jame’s hand. “But if you want to try and make this work, I’m not not opposed to it.”

James’ eyes widened, and she was ready to tease him again before he got his words in first. “Is that your way of sayin’ you love me?”

Krolia frowned as she felt her face flush and she grumbled, “You know I’m not that good with words. Just kiss me.”

James laughed before his lips met hers, and she shut her eyes, allowing herself to bask in the feeling. When they finally parted, James’ eyes glanced up at the lion and looked nervous. 

“We should— probably get the coordinates for this place down,” James said hurriedly. “I get the feelin’ that that thing is starin’ at us.”

While Krolia wanted to retort that a machine couldn’t stare at them, she had to agree on that. She couldn’t shake the feeling that as much as she wanted to believe that pieces of metal strung together with ancient technology could feel things, something in her mind was telling her otherwise. After she inserted the data into her tracker, they both looked up at the lion, their hands clasped together. 

“So, this is what you’re protectin’?”  
“It’s what we’re protecting.”

James looked at Krolia with another smile. “You’re right. What _we’re_ protectin’.”

  "I wonder if all of this was meant to happen," Krolia said, letting her thoughts slip out of her mouth. "My ship crashing onto earth, meeting you, and finding the lion."

  "I'm honestly not that kinda person to ask," James replied. "I would just a lot of circumstances and chances running a-mock, but whether or not you believe in all that is up to you."

  "I suppose you're right," Krolia looked around the cavern of the lion, taking a mild interest in the carvings on the ground, but the their whole trek was finally getting to her.  “Even though we've found it, we should still come out and check on the lion every now and then. Perhaps it’s the reason there’s the carvings, or it could send out signals to the other lions.”

She was in no rush to research more about the lion. In fact, now that it was here, she felt safe enough to just want to come look at it once in a while and examine it then. But deep down, she still couldn’t shake the feeling of something staring at her, and she didn’t want to stare at those yellow eyes that reminded her of some of her comrades and other Galran. 

“I don’t suppose there’s a way to pilot this lion?” James asked. “It’s just sittin’ here…”  
“Without its chosen paladin, I’m afraid all we have is a large ship with no one at the helm, and no way to lower its particle barrier,” Krolia replied, wishing it were that easy to just go up, knock on its partcile barrier and expect it to open up to them. “Whether or not we’ll get a paladin in this lifetime isn’t up to us. We just need to be sure the lion is safe, and no one knows of its whereabouts.”

“We’ll just think of this as a start of a new chapter,” James said, squeezing Krolia’s hand to be as comforting as possible. “The guardians of the Blue lion.”

“Yes, I’m certain there will be stories and legends written about us in the future,” Krolia joked, but leaned her head onto his shoulder. “But at the moment, I think I just want to go home and rest.”

James leaned down and kissed the top of her head, “After all of this excitement, I gotta admit I’m a bit tired myself.”

The two turned around and left the cave, hands still wrapped tightly around the other. The Blue lion watched quietly, eyes shining warmly as the couple vanished from its sight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for all of the support!  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	12. Anniversary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krolia and James getting used to this new shift in their relationship and James has an idea on how to celebrate. Also, the two of them meet a couple of familiar faces along the way.

 It had maybe been about two months since they found the Blue Lion, enough for them to get used to this new relationship (not that they didn’t already feel comfortable enough with each other already), as well as testing each of these new boundaries with the outmost caution one would take when starting a fire. He wasn't sure if "dating" was the right word to describe it, and ended up settling on "together". While he was more openly affectionate, Krolia tended to keep things to herself, and the times she did it was either when she seemed to be the most relaxed, or when she was sleepy. 

James found out something else quite interesting about Krolia after they decided to get more serious about their relationship. She was a cuddler. 

  If they were sitting on the couch reading, or watching shows, she’d eventually lean her head on to his shoulder and loosely drape her arms around his waist. Even when they fell asleep in bed, he’d wake up to to her curled up as close as she could to his body, or wrapping her arms around him. Times when she didn’t seem to want to be too affectionate, she’d just clasp their hands together, something that felt more intimate than whenever they’d steal kisses from the other throughout the day. 

What she didn’t say in words, she usually left to her actions, and he couldn’t help finding that extremely adorable. 

Currently, he was pondering deeply on whether or not it was worth it to get up and make breakfast since Krolia had an arm strewn across his waist and had her head nestled in his chest. He had turned onto his side the night before to make it easier on her. When he woke up to her twitching in her sleep and her breath catching, he held her closed and kissed her head, assuring her that this would pass. She had calmed down in three minutes and pulled herself close to him as if seeking any sort of warmth and comfort. 

As he stared at her sleeping face, running his fingers through her hair and lightly tracing the marking on her cheeks, stopping when he wasn’t sure where it ended on her neck, he didn't want to be anywhere else but here. Every time he saw her face, he wanted nothing more than to give her everything he could offer, to shower her in affection or just stay by her side. Even though he tried to be careful in not disturbing Krolia’s sleep, she ended up grumbling and diving deeper into whatever fabric on his body she could get her hands on. While she didn’t crack an eyelid open, he knew she was awake. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” James said as he lifted his hand away from her head and settling it back down onto the pillow above her. 

“While I would have taken this as an opportunity to get up and start training… let me sleep in for six more doboshes,” she rubbed her face closer to his neck and trying to pull James even closer than she already was .

“Aw, you’d rather spend more time with me?” James teased as he pushed away some of Krolia’s bangs from her face. 

“Take that back, you know that’s not the reason why,” Krolia said, taking her arm away from his body to flick at his chin before retreating back to its former position. “Just let me sleep a little longer.”

“What’ll happen if I don’t? You’ll kick me outta my bed?” James asked as he smiled and was feeling too cocky to consider why Krolia won most of their fights. 

Instead of answering, or opening her eyes to acknowledge she heard him, James instead felt a finger poking into his backside, causing him to burst out into spams of laughter. Krolia had accidentally discovered one day that James was ticklish in that certain area of his body after accidentally poking him there when she was attempting to look for the remote on the couch. When she poked James beside her to get his attention, instead of getting a small jolt, she got something that sounded like a squawk and a giggle. The rest of that encounter ended predictably, with James falling off of the couch and onto the floor while Krolia kept poking him without mercy. 

“Wait-wait- Krolia, stop! Ah! Stop! Sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” 

He tried to push her away or pull her arm out of poking distance, but she managed to roll on top of him, pin him down to the bed and continued to mercilessly tickle his sides. The more he tried to struggle, the more leverage he gave her to tickle him even more. 

“Yield!” She said, grinning wildly and not stopping. “Surrender and the pain will cease!”

James could barely get his voice to work without it breaking off into stutters and his free arm slapped the bed furiously in surrender, “Y-yield! I yield! I yield! I yield! Uncle!” 

After he felt Krolia’s fingers stop, he fell back and spent a few seconds trying to catch his breath and wiping the tears from his eyes. When that cleared, he looked up to see Krolia smiling down at him the same way she did whenever she wrestled him down during one of her training exercises. If Galra like her were strong enough to take down someone like him, all he could think was that humanity was fucked if her species ever decided to invade this little planet. 

“Tha-that wasn’t fair,” he tried to make his giggle sound like more of a gasp for air. 

“All’s fair in love and war,” Krolia put her hands on each side of James’ head, her hair falling in front of her face and eyes gleaming mischievously. 

James absently raised his hand, allowing his fingers to pass through her hair, and over the markings on her cheeks until he gently wrapped them onto to the back of her neck. He rubbed his thumb across her skin for a few moments, watching her eyes close slightly at the feeling. The early morning light casted a small glow onto Krolia, making her purple skin seem light blue. He felt the pleasant warmth growing in his chest, and wanted nothing more than to pull her close and kiss her. 

“You’re beautiful,” he said, feeling all of the adoration and love he had for Krolia drip into those words and her face almost immediately flushed. 

She groaned and dropped down, hiding her face into his neck again and he tried not to giggle as he felt her breath against his sking. “How you say the most embarrassing things without blinking will be one of the universe’s greatest mysteries to me.”

“I’m just speakin’ the truth,” James laughed, finding some joy out of watching this hardened alien warrior fall apart at the most simple compliment he has. “I’m givin’ out enough compliments for the both of us.”

“I compliment you too,” Krolia huffed as she lifted her face up and James had to turn his head to the side in order to talk to her properly. “You just tend to talk about me more and I don’t have the chance to get you back.”  
“‘Cause you’re the most—”

He felt a hand go over his mouth and saw Krolia give him a small warning look. The same look she had when she’d pulls her makeshift knife at his throat and daring him to make another move when he knew there were none.  
“If you’re going to say that I’m beautiful again, I will start to consider kicking you out of the bed.”

Once her hand moved away, James had to think of another sentence.  
“Then, it’s ‘cause I’m just the luckiest guy alive and I’ll never understand how I got to be with someone as amazing as you.”

He moved some of her hair away from her face and traced the shape of her cheek all the way down to her chin. Krolia leaned into the touch. 

“I still think that me crashing here is still the best thing that ever happened to me,” she ran a finger over James’ cheek and smiled warmly at him. “It let me meet someone I was happy to have been able to have the chance to fall in love with.”

James smile widened even further and he took one of his hands to cover his face, feeling the heat flowing through the back. “Now you’re makin’ _me_ blush.”

“Wasn’t that the goal?” Krolia teased as she leaned forward and placed a kissed to the palm of his hand. 

James moved his hand away and leaned upward, gently catching Krolia’s lips with his. When he pulled away, he could see Krolia’s eyes clouding slightly, what, he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t going to stop it. 

“Shouldn’t we be gettin’ up soon? Doesn't look like either of us are goin'  back to sleep," he knew that neither of them were going to leave this room for a while longer. 

Krolia lowered herself so she could lean chest to chest with James, wrapping her arms around his neck and lazily tracing his cheek with her finger nail. 

“It’s still early. I think we can stay in bed for a few more doboshes.”  
James wasn’t arguing as he turned his head and allowed her lips to meet his once more. Once she got close enough that he had to lay with his back on the bed to support the two of them, he knew that it would be more than a few minutes until they decided to leave. 

* * *

 “I’m still unclear on what these writings are supposed to be depicting,” James muttered as he stared at the pictures white lines etched into the inside of a cave that they found far beyond where they found the Blue Lion. They had moved to the shack to look at the things they’ve collected over the months and while they no longer had to worry about actually looking for the lion, it still left them with a lot of questions that James wanted to be addressed. 

“I don’t think I see much of a difference?” Krolia said, taking a bite out of a slice of bread. “It’s about the same as the other carving’s we found in the over caverns, a few figures, a lion, and what I assume are wormholes depicting how the lion arrived on earth.”  
“Wormholes?” He was sure he wasn't supposed to be thinking of literal wormholes.

“Basically, think of it like opening a portal to a different side of the universe.”

“Yup, humans definitely aren’t there yet,” James sighed as he tacked on another photo to the board. “Are these supposed to be predicting something in the future, or are these just records of what happened in the past?”

“At this point of our research anything seems likely,” Krolia sighed as she walked up beside James and stared at the coordinates James had written down onto a sticky note and slapped it next to a picture of the Blue Lion carved into the wall. “Perhaps it is supposed to be a sign of things to come, what those things are, I don't think I could accuratley tell you."

  "Maybe it foresaw us gettin' together." 

  He felt a small ball of dough the size of a marble hit his forehead and he saw Krolia's wrist in a toss position pointed at his direction. 

  "While the universe is cryptic enough, I don't think that's a likely possibility."

  "I mean it could be," James said, dodging another ball thrown at his direction.

  "So I'm guessing tonight we're just going to be pouring over our conspiracy board-?"

  "It's not a conspiracy board," James muttered as he tacked another photo on.

  "Or looking at the stars?"

    When Krolia was silent, he turned around to see her expecting him to answer.

  "Oh right, my turn to pick, huh?"

  She nodded as she looked at the group of photos that they took."As long as we don't have to go back and check on the lion, I'm up for anything."

  Jamed glanced up at the calendar and felt an idea come to mind. 

  "I think I got somethin'."

 

  "I'm still very much against this," Krolia said as she looked down at her helmet that was repurposed with a new cover. She also looked a little grumpier as she zipped up the leather jacket until it stopped at the bottom of her chin and pulled on dark gloves that covered her hands. "You do realize the amount of things that can go wrong, don't you?"

  "We won't be in town for long, and no one'll really pay attention to you since it's night and if you're near the hover bike, they'll stay away. Just cross your arms like you normally do and look intimidatin'," James said as he checked the bike to make sure everything was in place. "And it would be good for you to actually see what some human towns are like." 

  "I'm sure I have a pretty decent idea from what the tv and the news shows," Krolia muttered, but sighed as she defeatedly put her helmet on. "But seeing as how you're not going to change your mind, we might as well."

  "Well, the thing I have in mind is something that's found amongst our human civilization," James provided as he nodded in approval and hopped on board.

  "That's just your way of saying you don't want to cook tonight, isn't it?" Krolia asked as she climbed on and sat behind her partner with her arms wrapped around his waist. 

  "It'll be fine, I promise."

  Krolia didn't respond, but he felt her helmet dig slightly into his back, and he could imagine her laying her head on him. Soon they were off and James felt a slighy adrenaline rush as he navigated across the dark grounds, and knew Krolia trusted him enough to get them to their destination safely (although she might point out that she could have gotten there faster). After a while, the lights from the town could be seen from the outskirts where he parked the vehicle and jumped off, with Krolia sliding off soon after.

  "I'm just gonna run into those stores over there, buy some stuff and I'll be back soon." James said, as he gestured to his destinations. 

  As if on cue, she leaned against the speeder and crossed her arms. If he adjusted his eyesight and tilted his head like so, he could see her dark purple eyes staring down at him. The look was not really one of approval. 

  James leaned forward to place a light kiss to her visor, "I know you're gonna say you still don't like this."

  "I don't," she replied, her voice muffled through her helmet, but she stretched out her hand and grasped his gently. "Just be careful."

  "This isn't an enemy warzone, I'll be fine."

  It seemed like she was giving him a little smile, but he needed to guy buy the things on his list. He gave her hand a reaffirming squeeze before he let go and was off. By the time he was done, he had a small case of beer and two bags of take-out in his hands.

  Just as he was leaving the store and heading over to Krolia, he heard someone call out to him.

“James, is that you?” 

James snapped out of his thoughts to look up and spot someone he hadn’t seen in years. 

   "Anthony, holy crap, it's been a while."

   Anthony was a tall tan guy, maybe in his early twenties with his dark brown hair in an undercut, a muscular build and warm eyes that eased a lot of peole. He figured Anthony was the kind of guy people threw themselves at, and it didn't help that Anthony was also just a really nice guy all around. As his former colleague gave him a small hug after analyzing the amount of items he was carrying, he adjusted his light green jacket.

  "Hadn't heard from you since- never mind. Just glad to see you're doing well."

  The two were quiet for a moment, just taking a few seconds to look at the other and make guesses of what the other was up to. James wasn't really sure what the younger man could glean off of his appearance, besides the fact that he didn't look like someone who had lived among other people for a while.

  "Weren't you a lot smaller last time I saw ya? Now you're up to my eye level." James said as he  playfully messed with Anthony's hair, trying to lighten the air. "Did the guys back at the station put you on the poles and just pulled 'til you said stop?"

  "Nah, just had a growth spurt, a couple years back," he laughed. "If you think I'm tall now, you should see my sister."

  James caught that knowing look and shook his head, "I'm good, thanks though."

  He saw Anthony's eyes shift over behind him and his eyebrows shot up with interest. 

  "Isn't that the speeder all of us pitched in to get you when you were-" he halted and looked uncomfortable with whatever was at the tip of his tongue.

  "You can say when I was kicked out of my job, it doesn't bother me anymore, Tony."

  "It just... it sucks what happened to you. All we got you was an old beat up model speeder."

  "Happens to the best of us, and I was a bit of an ass back then. I've mellowed out after a few years out in the desert. You should try it, my dear padawan."

  "No thanks, I'd go crazy if I was left out in the desert alone." James watched Anthony's eyes move from the speeder to something else that caught his interest. "Speaking of which, who's that over there?"

  Anthony gestured to Krolia being stared at by a small child who seemed to be asking her questions she didn't want to be answering. He wanted to go over and help, but he knew if he left in the middle of their conversation, Anthony would follow him and go to talk to Krolia. As much as he enjoyed his talkative friend, he did not need that around Krolia at this point in time.

  "That's my... partner."

  That was the most general term he could come up with besides alien girlfriend. Or lover. Wait, _were_ they even lovers?

  Anthony whistled, "Damn, so you finally settled down with someone even though you're basically a hermit?"

  "Really?"

  "You know I'm just kiddin'," Anthony said, patting him good naturedly on the shoulder. "So, you gonna introduce me to your, partner? "

  "She doesn't like talkin' to others if she can help it," James said, prepared to step in front of Anthony's way if he attempted to side-step and try to approach Krolia.

  "Oh, she. So w here'd you two meet? She looks like a biker, ehich didn't seem like your type. Not that that's wrong or anything."

  "That's a... very complicated story." That was putting it lightly and James lifted his items up and tried to end this as politely as possible. "Look, I kinda want to get to her now or else she might tell me 'bout how that kid isn't leaving her alone."

  "I get it, dates and all," Anthony said and patted James's shoulder. "Next time you're free, we should grab a drink and talk. I wasn't sure if it would be a good idea to tell this to you, but we are looking for more fire-fighters to work. You don't have to answer now, but just think about it. Stations been a bit lonely without you there."

  James couldn't help but smile at the offer, "Thanks, I'll think about it."

  Anthony waved him good-bye and walked off, leaving James to wave as well and turning towards Krolia, who was now alone with the speeder.

* * *

 

   She was watching James talk to this other person for a bit, the two of them exchanging laughs and a few claps. James looked so happy and Krolia felt lonely standing off to the side, unable to fully reveal herself. She distantly began to wonder if James would have been happier being surrounded by people like himself instead of being cooped up with her. 

  As much as he told her he loved her, thos moments of doubt never really left her. 

  "Woah! Is that a TLS-300 model speeder?"

  All she could think when she looked down to find the voice she heard and the only thought that came to her was, _What is this tiny human doing near me?_

  James had said that her outfit and demeanor was supposed to turn people away, but she wasn't sure if he factored in children into that equation. One moment, she was what humans called "people-watching" and the  suddenly whe  she looked down, a small child with a missing tooth was smiling widly at her.

  "Excuse me miss, is this speeder yours?"

  "...no."

  As much as she wanted to just glare quietly and hope the kid would get the hint to leave her alone, there was something about that sparkle in their eyes that somehow made her weak to his question. She really needed to get a better training regime.

  "Do you get to fly it a lot? Are you a pilot?"

  "I already answered that first question, and l'm... technically a pilot." She was regretting ever answering.

  "So... have you been to space?"

  Krolia felt her heart drop and she wondered where this question came from. "Why do you say that?"

  The child held out his palm and began listing off his reasons to her, stretching out a finger for each one. 

  "You're a pilot. The only pilots around here go to the Garrison, and the pilots there are taught how to fly in space."  He paused from his musings to look at the woman above him as if he's realized he may have overstepped some boundaries. "Are you not? Because not everyone who goes becomes a pilot, I'm sorry if I assumed too much."

  Krolia felt a little touched at this human child's maturity as she knelt down to speak at his eye level, "Well, I have flown in space, but I didn't go to the Garrison for it. If that's a good plave for you humans to learn, and it's something you excel at, you should go."

  The boy stood there thoughtfully, and before he could answer a woman with dark black hair tied in a braid jogging towards them.

  "Takashi! I told you not to run off without telling me!" She knelt down to check on her son, patting his face and shoulder with him muttering "Mom, stop", and when she was satisfied, she looked up at Krolia. "I am so sorry if my son was disturbing you."

  Krolia  moved her head away to avoid the lights coming from the buildings, just to be safe. "No, he's just been asking about space, and this speeder. He's been no problem at all."

  "Well, thank you. Takashi, come on, I promised to buy you that book after the doctor's trip, didn't I?"

  The boy held onto his mother's hand and smiled brightly as he waved good-bye to Krolia, "Good-bye, miss!"

  She waved as the two walked back into the town and she returned her arms back into its crossed position. Somehow, she started thinking about what it would be like to have a family. While she considered the people in the Blades her family, she had never thought until now what it would be like to have her _own_ family. One she was allowed to make outisde of the war.

  Krolia could hear James' footsteps approaching her as he hefted up the bags of food he got. 

  "Sorry, did I take too long? I hope you weren't put on the spot with that kid earlier."

  "No, it was fine. Neither of them looked too closely at my face, so there's no problem," she looked down at what he had purchased and could only tilt her head slightly without the helmet pulling her the rest of the way down. "What did you buy?"

  James grinned as he held up his prizes proudly, "Food, for our sixth month anniversary!"

  "Anniversary?" Krolia asked, as if the word was a new language. "Why?"

  "Well, it's been six months since we met, so I thought we could celebrate."

  Krolia was really touched by James' gesture as she moved her hand onto the back of his neck and moved his head down so ahe could press their foreheads together. 

  "You didn't have to do this."

  "How can I not when I'm doin' it for you?" James asked as he smiled back. "But, we should probably leave we can eat this and you can take your helmet off."

  "That means I get to drive," Krolia said as she slowly slipped her hand off of his neck so her fingers could linger on his skin.

  "I trust you," James replied gently, and it took her a lot of willpower not to throw her helmet off so she could kiss him. Instead, she tried to convey it as best as she could with most of her face obscured.

  "I'm glad you do."

 

* * *

    They had settled down on one of the mountain tops, eating their food and drinking the beer James had bought. While Krolia made light note of what happened the last time the two of them got drunk, she still gladly downed a bottle when it was offered. Once their food had been discarded, James took out a blanket and wrapped it around the two of them as they stared at the rocky landscape and starry sky.

  Even though she was comfortable and wanted to keep that atmosphere, she couldn't get rid of the thought that was bugging her. She could blame her talkativeness on the drink later.

  "James..."

  "Hm?" He asked, wrapping his arm around her shoulder to keep the blanket on as they stood against the speeder.

  "Are you happy?" She asked and cleared her throat. "I mean, are you happy, with this? With us?"

  "'Course I'm happy."  He turned his head to look at her closely, his cheeks flushed from the drink, but his look was full of concern. "Why? What's on your mind?"

  "You just seemed so at ease back in the town talking to your colleague, and... I was just wondering whether or not you wanted to live differently. We've already found the lion, you don't have to look after me anymore."

  She bit her lip and wondered if the only reason she was this concerned was because she was a little drunk. She felt James lean down to kiss her cheek, and pulled her even closer than before.

  "I don't wanna pretend to know everythin' that's goin' on in your mind, and all I can do is give my honest opninion." He nosed at her hair and she felt his arm move dpwn to her hand and hold it. "In the time that I've met you, I've never regretted a day when I wasn't near you. To be truthful, I kinda liked you from the start, but I pushed those feelings away. Yeah, sometimes I do miss bein' 'round other people, but I'd gladly live out here with nothin' but you and the stars to keep me company."

  Krolia was already feeling incredibly warm from all of these words and the next words that she heard nearly knocked her out.

  "I love you."

  She froze, unsure of how to reply, even though the reply seemed so obvious. She _knew_ she loved him, but _saying_ it, was another thing entirely. Krolia wanted to reply, but again, her voice was failing.

  "I- I-"

  "Don't worry," James said, pulling her close and kissing her forehead. "I won't force you to answer. Just tell me whenever you're ready, but I want you to know that I really am happy out here with you, no matter what. I love being with you, and I love-"

  "Alright," Krolia interrupted, pulling the blanket so it muffled James' mouth. "I think I've hear enough "I love you's" for a day."

  James giggled, "I gues that's fair for you."

  Krolia snuggled in close to James, letting his arms go around her waist so he could pull the blankets closer. She mouthed "I love you" as she leaned her head against his shoulder.

  "You said somethin'?"

  "Nothing," Krolia sighed as she stared lazily at the starry sky next to the person she loved. She wanted to savor every moment they shared, deep down not knowing when the universe would take it away from her. For now, she enjoyed the safe feeling she got that sheltered her from the cold night air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glad to see you guys enjoying the fic so far! Sorry if it the chapter seems kinda weird this week, I was left with no internet, relying on LTE/3G and a phone to write on  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	13. Vow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krolia and James decide to get even closer than they already are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter with a more implied sexual content (or... whatever. There will be some sexual content, but it's not overt? Idek.) Nothing too plot relevant happens, so you may feel free to skip most of the first part of this chapter since the second part is just them talking a bit more (and this part will be pretty short compared to my other chapters).

The afternoon sun shrouded the ground in red, orange and bright yellow hues, something she normally would have admired had she not been so engrossed in her training at the moment. 

Krolia swung her knife sharply through the air, cutting through it and hearing the metal hissing with each thrust and twist of her wrist. Once she twirled the blade in her hand, followed by a jump and slash that would have fallen anyone who came in range, she exhaled and relaxed. She stared down at her blade, realizing that she hadn’t used its sword form in a while, but she usually preferred having a small weapon in hand unless the stakes became too high for the situation at hand.

A thought struck her, something in the back of her mind asking her if she was doing enough to stay vigilant and sharp. For half-a year she had crashed onto earth, and in that time, she had fallen in love with the person who saved her life, and enjoyed simple things she normally wouldn’t have had time for back with the Blades. Time with her partner, the possibility of a life without war, without fighting through each day wondering whether or it was would be the day she wasn’t going to make it. She was at peace here on earth. 

While she doubted there would be a way for her to get back to space, she always had a little fear of this life she had come to love crashing down around her. That one day, she would be forced to leave behind her new home, her partner, and a planet she had come to care for. 

Among other things that caused her to be fearful of whatever possibility the future held, these were the thoughts that often ran rampant in her mind. The fear of losing this sort of safety net she had set up for herself, knowing full well that at any moment, a string can come loose and fall apart beneath her. This thought had been bothering her for a week since they went to the nearby town, and no matter what she tried to do to ignore it, it refused to leave. 

She wiped the sweat from off the back of her neck, but didn’t feel like pursuing the training any further. Tiring herself out physically usually felt like the normal route she would take, but now she wanted something else. 

As much as she would have liked to call James out, just so she could help him with his form or teach him a few more hand-to-hand techniques, there was no more incentive to keep moving. She ended up walking back into their home, noticing James prepping up dinner for them in the kitchen. 

He was humming along to something playing on the radio, and she didn’t want to disrupt him too much so she just walked behind him and carefully wrapped her arms around his waist, letting her head rest on his back. She could feel his every movement like this and something about that was incredibly calming and anchored her to the moment. 

“Done trainin’ already?” James asked. “You usually don’t go this long unless there’s somethin’ goin’ on in your mind.”

He remembered days where she almost angrily trained to de-stress herself whenever they failed to get a lead on the Blue lion, and those were days she’d return back home with sore muscles and flop onto the couch to sleep. 

She merely replied with a small grunt. 

“Well I’m makin’ fried rice tonight, hope that’s okay.”

Another grunt. 

James didn’t press any further as he started to stir the ingredients around in the pan, careful to not jostle Krolia too much. Beyond the frying pan, and the radio playing in the back, it was pleasantly quiet As he was about to try and see how he could move to put their dinner in its own separate plate, Krolia said something to him. 

“I love you.”  

  He nearly stumbled and dropped the pan, hoping Krolia couldn’t feel how fast his heart was beating. It felt like it could pop out of his chest if she squeezed him tighter. He counted to three before trying to turn his head around to talk to her. 

“What brought this up all of a sudden?”

“Nothing in particular,” Krolia said, burying her face deeper into his shirt. “Well… you’ve said it so much, I figured I should return the favor.”

“Say it too much and I think I might die of a heart attack,” James muttered. 

“What?”

“Nothin’.”

He thought that would be the end of it and they’d discuss this some other time, but then he felt something soft and wet pressing against the back of his neck that really came close to full on dropping the pan over the stove and spilling all of the food over it. His mind ran around a million thoughts in one second, and all of them looping back to the fact that Krolia was kissing the back of his neck. 

Thank god he somehow managed to turn the stove off.

“Krolia-” he almost moaned out her name and instead turned it into a half-cough. 

This wouldn’t be the first time either of them had done something like this. They were fairly spontaneous when they got a little more handsy, or frisky of each other, but this felt different. He wasn’t sure why he was thinking this, and the more he tried to collect his thoughts, they were instantly scattered when he felt a warm tongue lapping at his skin and slowly trailing upward until he could feel Krolia standing on her toes to nip at his ear lobe. 

He finally turned around to Krolia and kissed her, feeling her body relax as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer and trying to tilt her head to get a better angle. He hated to do this, but he managed to pull away, noticing Krolia’s voice hitch in protest.

“Shouldn’t we eat first? The food’ll get cold.” He asked, and watched her eyes barely pause over to the food as she moved her hand up through his hair. 

“I’m not hungry,” she said, but the look in her eyes didn’t seem to follow those words. 

One part of his mind wanted to argue, whilst the other was yelling at him to get back to kissing his alien girlfriend-slash-partner-slash-lover. They somehow managed to navigate their way around the kitchen to the living room, Krolia’s back pressed against the cushions of the couch as James trailed kisses from her lips down to her chin and even following the markings on her cheeks that stretched to the back of her neck. Every time he managed to get a pleased groan out of her, it managed to egg him on further as he explored whatever skin she made available. 

However, he came to a sudden halt when he felt her hand trailing down a particular area on his pants and it made him finally remember a question he wanted to ask her before his brain short circuited.

“Look, I’m not really complainin’ about this whole mood change, but what’s goin’ on with you?” He sounded so out of breath, but was more surprised that he could form _any_ words. 

Beneath him, Krolia looked annoyed and trapped at the same time, her eyes turning away from him as she spoke. 

“I just- I want to do it.”

“What?”

“Sex,” she said simply, and frowned like she was trying not to poke his cheek and add “duh”. 

James couldn’t help but laugh as Krolia looked more annoyed by the second. She even pinched his nose in what he considered was retaliation. 

“What’s so funny about that?” She asked. 

“Sorry, just forgot how blunt you could be.”

“Aren’t I always like this?”

James placed a kiss on her forehead before looking at her again. “Come on, Krolia. What’s really going on?”

She sighed as she slowly pulled herself up, leading the two of them to be faced to face with each other.

“I’m worried, about all of this. About _us_.”

James leaned back so he wasn’t literally caging her in with his arms, and gave her an encouraging look. “What about us?”

Krolia hated looking vulnerable, but she knew she was safe with James. She took a breath in before letting all of the words tumble out. 

“I’ve never had a relationship like this where I was committed to someone. I don’t hate it, I’m glad we have this, but, there’s always something the back of my mind that’s telling me that it won’t last. That some day, I might have to leave all of this behind.” She thought that voicing it out loud and telling James would make her feel better, that the “weight” would be off of her shoulders, but she was feeling even more crushed. As if actually saying it only made the possibility all the more real.

“I don’t want to lose any of this. So I wanted to tell you that I loved you and I wanted to have all of you, just as you have all of me.”

James gently lifted his hand and traced Krolia’s cheeks, thumbing her skin as he leaned closer to her. 

“I promise, I will always love you no matter what. No matter what’ll happen, you’ll always have me, just as I have you. If this is what you want to do, I won’t object.”

Krolia gently smiled back and leaned closer so their foreheads were touching. “Are you just saying this to make me feel better?”

“I meant every word,” He took one of her hands and put it over her heart, gazing at her eyes that seemed like they lead to the depths of space. “Do you want me?”

Krolia’s eyes flickered between that gesture and back to her partner’s face, moving forward ever so slightly until her lips were delicately brushing against his. 

“Yes.”

She leaned forward closing the gap, and nothing else mattered. Yet after a few seconds of this, she pulled away, much to his chargrin. 

“Do you have any more complaints you’d like to voice now that you have the chance?” She questioned with a little smirk spreading across her face and licking her lips.

James flushed at this before muttering, “I don’t know if I have any condoms…”  
“I’m fine without it,” Krolia said as she ran her hands over his shoulders. 

“You sure you don’t wanna shower first?”

“No. But when has that ever stopped you?” She teased as she captured his lips again.

  He only had one last question. 

“Bed?” 

“Bed.” Krolia agreed and they both stumbled up the stairs, laughing when they got to the door and even when she pushed him onto the mattress and crawled on top of him. 

James trailed a hand up the back of her shirt, relishing the smoothness of her skin and when Krolia closed her eyes to enjoy the feeling. As she kissed him again while pushing away his jacket and yanking at his shirt, he had just gotten her pants off and stopped so he could help her rid him of his shirt. The look she was giving him made his blood burn as if he had a fever. She stared at him like he was a treasure she wanted to keep forever. A treasure that was for her and her eyes only. She traced his bare chest with her fingers as she smiled down at him.

“Do you love me?” She asked.

He didn’t hesitate to respond as he pulled himself up to drag her closer and kiss her.

  “Always.” 

* * *

 

By the time he woke up again, he had lost count of how many times they went at it, and didn't have the energy to examine the number of marks the both of them had left on each other. Yet he couldn’t care less. He was content and happy as he looked down to see Krolia’s hair a mess and wrapping herself across his body. Even if the world was ending right outside his home, he couldn’t have cared less. 

James kissed the tip of her nose, causing her face to slightly wrinkle before it eased back into slumber. He had many thoughts like this before, but he never wanted this moment to end. While he also didn’t believe in fate, he wondered what kind of mystical forces allowed him to have this beautiful and strong alien woman by his side and how he didn’t feel like he deserved even her presence. 

However, Krolia grumbled and her eyes began to slowly open, looking up at James like a content cat as she nuzzled her head beneath his chin. 

“How long was I asleep?”

“I’d say about a couple of hours,” James said as he made note of the time. All he could tell from his clock was that it was probably two in the morning. “I was protectin’ you as you slept.”

“Hm, so I suppose that makes you my “knight in shining armor” as your human stories would put it?”

“Knight, maybe. But I definitely don’t have the shining armor for it,” James made a small gesture to his naked upper body, his lower half covered with a blanket, as was Krolia’s.

  Krolia smiled as she leaned up further on the pillow to look at her partner. “Perhaps, but I’ll give you a few points for being the one to save me.”

James took her hand and kissed the back of her hand, “I’m honored.”

He noticed her eyes going slightly downcast and gave her a moment before she spoke. 

“I’m still unsure of what the future can hold, but I think I can get through it with you by my side.”

“We got through a lot together,” James said. “No matter what happens, I’ll always be by your side.”

Krolia kissed his forehead with a smile on her face and leaned closer to his face, “That’s all well and good, but currently, there’s one future event that can’t be ignored.”

“What’ll that be?” James asked, a bit curious at where this was going.

“A shower,” Krolia said as he as she pulled away to tease him and began to slowly slip out of bed, shivering at the cold air in the room. “A long hot shower, since you definitely left me feeling a little sore, I'm calling first privelge.”

Despite that event occurring barely an hour ago, when he pictured Krolia’s naked form squirming beneath him, nails that might as well be claws digging into his back and screaming his name, he was prepared to die of embarrassment. But he didn’t want her to leave yet. 

  “I’m sure we can spare a few more minutes” James said as he wrapped his arms across Krolia’s waist and gently guided her back down to their bed. “Don’t leave yet.”

Krolia sighed as she allowed herself to be pulled back down, but before James could attempt to cuddle, she was already pinning him beneath her and straddling his hips, her eyes glinting mischievously. 

“The night is still young,” Krolia smiled as she began tracing a line with her thumb from his lips down to his stomach. “And I want to hear you calling _my_ name.”

James could only smile as he let her lead into whatever would happen next. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I salute all and any writers who can write good/believable/any kind of smut. I can't write it for sh*t. I was literally groaning and facepalming half of the time I was writing the first part to this chapter. (Maybe that's why I made it so short, to avoid all of the second hand embarrassment I'm giving myself)  
> This will probably be the shortest chapter I've written for this fic, but I'll try my best and do a double update.  
> I think from now on, I'm going to update on Saturdays/Sundays (most likely Sunday).  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	14. Bad Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krolia comes across a (somewhat) unexpected occurrence, and she has no idea how to feel about it. It fills her with a mixture of joy, and dread. Would James feel the same about all of this?

 A few months ago, she would have been up before dawn, but now, she was getting even more sluggish and annoyed than before. Her body felt like it was being weighed down by something invisible, It was just supposed to be another routine trip to check on the Blue Lion, but making herself get up and do it was even more taxing than before. James did offer to help, but ultimately she made him let her deal with it by herself. Times like this, she was grateful he gave her time to be alone, it made sorting through her thoughts easier. 

Even though the lion was a part of her mission, she never felt at ease being around it. Not in the way the lion was intimidating height wise, or with its long history, but it was something else she couldn’t quite place. She and James would at times discuss the odd feeling they would both get around the mechanical beast, but chalk it up to the quintessence in the area being more powerful than anywhere else in the area, or equating it to looking at something in museums and sometimes can’t fathom how the items or creatures came to be. 

These musings were rummaging around in her mind as she poked her breakfast of a “sunny-side” up egg (the first time James made it for her, it took her a few moments to realize why it was called sunny-side) next to hashbrowns and a slice of toast, pressing at the yolk before stabbing it and watching the yellow ooze out over the white flesh. 

“You feelin’ alright?” James asked, sipping from his coffee mug and flipping over a magazine from a couple weeks back. 

“I’m just a little more tired than usual,” Krolia muttered as she mixed it with the hash-brown, creating a sticky mess on her plate. 

James offered her his coffee but she quietly refused. She thought shoving the food down her mouth would make her feel better, but that proved to be the wrong option. 

“You up for today’s inspection on the lion? If you’re not feelin’ well, we can do it another time.”

“If we keep saying that then we’ll never get to checking on it.” She gave him a reassuring smile, “Don’t worry about me, I’ve had worse.”

James stood up, walking over and placing a kiss on her forehead, “I just don’t want you pushin’ yourself.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said with a sense of finality. 

He seemed to believe her after clearing their plates and getting ready to inspect the lion. Everything seemed completely normal until they got to the cave.

__

“I still can’t believe this thing actually exists no matter how many times we come to see it,” James said as he walked up to the particle barrier and took a few steps around it to inspect it. “It’s like finding out the loch ness monster is really real.”

“The what-ness monster now?” Krolia had heard of plenty of fictitious monster creatures that humans knew of, created or feared, but she didn’t know _all_ of them. 

“Don’t mind me,” James said as he started to walk around the barrier and gently pressing a hand against it, watching the blue energy around it ripple like he had placed his hand over water. 

“I’m surprised you’re brave enough to actually touch the barrier now.”

“Didn’t help that the first time I tried you tricked me in thinking it would shock me if I touched it,” James grumbled, giving Krolia a pouty face. 

“Oh right, I forgot about that,” she mused, remembering the look of shock on his face when she told him that and how his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “You can never be too careful.”

She walked up towards the lion to try and peer inside its shield and looking at the carvings on the ground. 

“I wonder if these ground carvings are similar to the ones we found on the wall.”

“They look similar enough,” James replied as he leaned as close as he dared.

Krolia look to examining the lion from where she was at, starting from its claws, to climbing all the way up to its yellow eyes. She stared up at them, as if trying to see if the lion will give her some kind of sign.

_If you’re alive, I hope you understand that this entire situation could have been avoided had you been a little less cryptic._

Obviously, she got no response, so she was left crossing her arms and glaring at it. 

_Well thanks for making all of this easier for us._

A strange chill ran down her spine and she quickly look up at the lion. She saw something glint and had to keep herself from bolting out of the cave. She must have also literally shivered as James looked over to her, turning away from the particle barrier. 

“Krolia?”

She shook her head, “Nothing, must be a trick from the barrier.”

Krolia pulled her arms closer into herself, trying not to think of the machine possibly coming to life and easily crushing the life out of them. She remembered seeing Sendak bring in the Red lion, and even though it had no pilot, she could still feel something angry and spiteful coming from the creature. If the lions now had a personal vendetta against Galra, the last thing she wanted was to be on the receiving end of one of them.

The growing pain in her stomach managed to distract her from that, but it slowly began to get worse. She tried breathing, but nothing seemed to be working, even when she focused on one of the rocks surrounding the barrier. 

Krolia suddenly felt something essentially pulling her stomach and her eyes began to swim, causing her to lean on the wall for support when the cave wouldn't stop spinning. Her hand managed to keep her up, but even trying to steady herself like this wasn’t going her odd illness any favors. She was so tempted to just crumble to the floor and clutch her stomach to see if that would ease the pain.

“Krolia, are you okay?” James asked as he walked towards her with a worried expression.

“Just, need, some air. I’ll be fine,” Krolia grunted, feeling her breathing become uneven as her other hand was twisting her shirt around her stomach. “Don’t worry about me.”

As she inched her way out of the cave, she barley made it a few feet before felt her mouth watering, and she suddenly keeled over, vomiting all over the cave floor. Coughing and hacking as a mixture of liquida began to pour out of her mouth.

She could barely hear James’ startled exclamation as he ran over to her side and tried rubbing her back as she continued to heave for the next couple of minutes. All she wanted was for this to be over, but it never seemed to know where to stop. When the pain and nausea finally subsided, she looked up to find her partner looking extremely terrified. 

“Maybe we should go home, you need rest.”

“I s-said I’m fine,” she stammered, trying to wipe away whatever was gathered around her lips, and looked down to see her hands trembling. “I’m probably just tired.”

“Yeah, you’ve been saying that since this morning,” James didn’t look like he was buying but he helped her up and gave her a stern look, “Fine, but if you puke again, we’re goin’ straight back home.”

“I’ll manage,” she coughed as he grabbed her hand and helped her up. 

She stumbled and he leaned her against the wall that was furthest away from where she dropped what felt like all of her breakfast and made her sit down.

“I’ll do the rest of the checkin’, you just sit here and rest.” 

Krolia wanted to argue but when James held up one of his fingers before she could protest, she grumbled and grumpily turned away. She was feeling better now, but with nothing to do besides watching her partner, she was getting restless. She still hadn’t brought her knife to their trips, figuring that there was no danger since they knew every route and cranny to the cave. But now, she wished she had something to focus on.

As if noticing her restlessness, James was by her side and feeling her forehead. 

“Let’s just call it a day and get you some rest?”  
“… Fine.”

When they made to leave, she swore she could hear a purr reverberating in her mind, but didn't want to tell James, thinking he'd attribute it to her illness. Just as they stepped out into the dry airband bright sunlight, Krolia couldn’t help glancing back at the lion, wondering if it could in fact be more alive than she realized. 

* * *

 

About an hour and a half of James checking her temperature and suggesting more sleep, and then he was out to buy her medicine and grocery’s. Despite her telling him that she was fine, he refused to budge on that topic, leaving her to sit on the couch, flipping lazily through the books she’d already read or sharpening her knife. She had offered to use her gauntlet to scan herself and prove that she wasn’t sick, but James insisted she just take medicine. 

After a few minutes of sharpening and polishing her knife, she sighed and looked up to the ceiling, already restless and bored again. James wouldn’t return for another hour, and she was sure he wouldn’t let her hear the end of it if he caught her training, so she decided to go get herself scanned. At least then she’d be able to clam him down and assure him that he was overreacting. 

Krolia looked for her gauntlet and when she found it, she placed it onto her arm and spoke to the transparent floating screen that appeared.

“Begin health scan.”

“ _Scanning body for possible viruses, please hold still_ ,” a robotic voice chirped and Krolia stood as still as she could in the middle of the living room as the monitor beeped lowly.

“ _Scan complete. Data available_.”

She looked down at the screen, making note of how she seemed perfectly healthy and was prepared to show this to James when he returned. That was until she noticed the highlighted area of stomach and she frowned. Perhaps it was just her menstrual cycle beginning? She tapped the small screen to zoom in and read the diagnosis. 

At first, she thought she misread it, but after the third or fifth time of her eyes looking over the words, she almost ripped the gauntlet off of her arm and tossed it into the corner of the room. 

This was really happening. 

Now she felt even more sick than she was this morning. Suddenly, she ran towards the kitchen sink as the nausea wave returned, but she wasn’t sure if it was because of the source of her sickness, or from the dread and fear that came with it. She gripped the counter until her knuckles began to turn white, or until she thought that her nails were leaving long trails in the metal. 

After it passed and she coughed a few times to clear her throat, she washed the sink down and stared at herself in the dim reflection of the window looking out towards the desert. She seemed even more exhausted than before, her eyes still puffy from crying, and her throat burning from the stomach acid. She wondered if she could looked passed the mountains, she’d be able to see James driving home. 

_James_. 

She groaned, her knees too weak hold her up, so she took to sliding down on the floor until she huddled herself up near the cabinets and wrapped herself in her arms, trying not to overthink what was happening, and what the consequences were. She gripped her stomach almost protectively as she growled at any invasive thoughts that were trying to worm their way into her head. Yet try as she might, there was one question she couldn’t evade for forever. 

How should she tell James?

* * *

 

He got home with his arms full of grocery bags, feeling a little uncertain about the medicine he bought. From normal pills, to patches, and even tea for Krolia. She had never gotten sick before, but they weren’t going to start seeing if she could now. He wondered if he was overreacting to this, and felt horrible about leaving Krolia instead of staying by her and trying to make her feel relaxed. He managed to get the door open with his foot and closed it just the same. He looked around to find Krolia curled up on the couch, her arms pressed against her stomach and her expression twisted in what he could only describe as pain.

“Hey, you feelin’ better? If you’re not, I got a lot of stuff that could help, and stuff that some old women forced on me because they claimed it was “cheap” and were supposed to work better.” Jame set the bags onto the kitchen table, sighing as he rubbed his arms from the soreness of carrying everything.

“Oh, I didn’t hear you come in,” Krolia replied, looking up at him with a tone of surprise. “Sorry.”

“That’s not really like you,” James said a she began to sift through the bags. If he was going to look after her, maybe tea was a good first step before he panicked and went to the medicine next. “Want me to get some tea started up for you? I heard this brand is good for stomachaches and can help with nausea.”

He glanced at the box and frowned, “Or this is just normal tea. I could never tell them apart. They all seem the same.”

He didn’t notice Krolia’s expression become even more worried as she stood up and cleared her throat, “James, I need to tell you something.”

James turned around, and the second he saw her expression, all of the panic he was holding back surged to the forefront. “Oh, shit. Are you actually sick?”

“No, well, not exactly-”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get the tea started and some soup on the stove.” He ran over to the stove to pour water into a kettle, set it on the the fire and grabbed a mug for her. “Or would that be too much hot liquids? Should I just get some soup on instead?”

“James, I took a health scan from my gauntlet and-”

“Don’t worry, just rest and I’ll get everything set-”

“I’m pregnant,” Krolia interjected sharply, her eyes looking pleadingly at James, andhe felt time literally freeze when he met her gaze.

He looked between her hands placed over her stomach to her eyes that looked like they were watering in fear. When he somehow snapped back into reality, he noticed that he was holding the mug so hard his fingers turned white and he immediately set it down on the table and while he wanted to walk over to Krolia, he had to lean against the wooden table to stabilize himself. 

He hardly acknowledged the tremors that were going through his arms, and he wondered if Krolia was in worse shape. 

James didn’t know why he was surprised, when they messed around they hadn’t done it with any protection, and it was a miracle that the first few times somehow didn’t result in _this_. He tried to clear his head, and the mixture of emotions that were tumbling over each other inside his chest was making it hard for him to breath. He was shocked, ecstatic, terrified and jubilant. Once he managed to be calm enough to speak, he looked back up at Krolia. 

“A-are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“And you- so, when…” He took a moment to run his hand over his mouth, not really sure where else he can take this conversation. “So… how are you feeling?”

Krolia seemed to try and curl in on herself to make herself even smaller as her shoulders hunched upwards and her eyes focused on the floor. 

“Honestly, I’m really scared and confused right now. I was trying so hard not to over think this, but I just- I’m too scared to really think about anything else,” Krolia’s eyes widened as she began to ramble even more. “Should I be happy that we have a child? Should I be worrying about whether or not they’ll look like me? I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I can do.”

James quickly walked over to Krolia, holding one of her hands and with the other he placed it over her cheek so he could tilt her head up to look at him. She stared up at him, trying to search for some kind of response in his eyes. 

“Krolia, this is great news,” James said, his voice bubbling over with happiness as he gently circled his thumb over her skin. 

“But, how are we supposed to-?”  
“We’ll figure it out,” James said, gently kissing Krolia’s forehead. “Just like we always have. No matter what happens next, we’ll do it together.”

He watched her take in his words, the look of confusion slowly dying away and her body becoming less stiff. He needed her to know that he was going to help her through all of this, for better or worse. Krolia closed her eye as she leaned her head onto his shoulder, as if trying to remind herself where she was.

“I just- I can’t believe this is really happening,” Krolia breathed.

“I know,” James said and in one swift movement, he wrapped both of his arms around her waist, lifted her up and began to spin Krolia up in the air. All of the excitement that had slowly built up inside his body bursted open as he basked in his euphoria. “We’re gonna be parents!”  
He laughed at the scream of terror that came out of her mouth before it turned into a fit of giggles and she had to hit his shoulders a few times to get his attention. 

“Alright, alright! Just stop or you’ll drop all of us!”  
He managed to clam himself down and set Krolia back on the ground where she smiled up at him. James gingerly lifted his hand and moved to put it over her stomach, but hesitated. She gently grabbed his wrist and guided it down, grinning down at it. 

“I didn’t think it was possible.”

“Why do you say that?”  
“Well, even though my species has bred with others over the past ten millennia, I didn’t think our species were compatible enough to actually conceive a child.”

“Guess there are surprises for everything,” James joked and watched Krolia’s eyes looking inquisitively at him. “What?”  
“I’m just worried over how we’re supposed to prepare for this. I’ve never dealt with births in the Blades, and I don’t know if Galra birthing is the same for you humans.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I have some experience with helping women give birth,” James saw his beautiful partner look up at him bewilderedly. “While my main job was fightin’ fires, sometimes we come across women who can’t make it to the hospital to give birth, so we help them.”

“That does make me feel just a bit better,” Krolia admitted, pressing her body close to James. 

“We’ll get through this.” James assured her again, pouring all of the love he had for his partner and soon to be child. 

“All three of us?” Krolia smiled and James leaned down to kiss her lips and press his hand onto her stomach.

“All three of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo, we're coming towards the end, guys. Since I'm going off to college pretty soon, I think I might try and update a bit more often, although I won't have a set schedule. So I guess it'll be a surprise for all of us?  
> Sorry for posting late, I write more when I procrastinate before a deadline.  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	15. Yorak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and gents, this is the moment you've waited for (Whoa~).

“Fala or Dorma seem like good names if they’re a girl,” Krolia said as she whittled away a piece of wood James had given for her to “take her mind off of things”. “But I still haven’t figured out what male names sound good.”

Her blade easily sliced through the material, and while it did help to pass the time, she wouldn’t really label herself as artistic. She ended up carving out what seemed to be more like a stake than a creature she vaguely remembered seeing during one of her routine check-ups on the lion or out in space. She wanted to toss it into the pile on the coffee table of other discarded pieces she tried to make, which ended up being more stakes. James joked that they could whittle it down some more to make spits or use them as kindling. 

“I thought we agreed that we’d wait until after the baby was born to pick out names?” James asked, sitting on the floor beside the coffee table, a few feet away from Krolia and pouring over a piece of paper with a pile of wood by his side. 

There wasn’t any harshness in his tone, he was genuinely curious, and because like a kid awaiting for the day of a test, the more he talked about it, the more anxious he got. The more he read from books or checked his computer, the more stressed he became. He remembered hearing stories from former colleagues talking about getting through each trimester, and how it seemed like a nightmare at times. 

“Well, I don’t have much else I can think about when all I’ve been doing for the past twenty something weeks is sitting down and reading up on how to care for our child,” she said, looking down at her swelled stomach and placing a hand over it when she felt a little push. “I’m just bored with nothing to do while my stomach is being currently occupied by another living being. It’s frustrating when I can’t do anything.”

James looked up from his work, giving her an apologetic smile, “I know, but I’d prefer you try not to put yourself through too much stress just to be safe.”

Krolia puffed out air through her nose as she bit through her third apple for that day. Even though James helped her through each stages of her pregnancy, from buying larger clothes that she managed to sew and alter to fit, and getting foods she craved. These things they knew and could anticipate, but their child was still something of a mystery to them. 

They weren’t exactly sure what their child would be like once they were born, whether they’d look like her, or James, or maybe even have a mix of the two genes’ somehow. As much as she wanted to think her gauntlet would give a good number on the likelihood of either choice happening, she knew that she needed more advanced medical equipment to be sure. Times like these she wished she had a way to contact the Blades, but she’d always hear Kolivan’s nagging voice telling her what a harrowing mistake she was making. 

There was a small _snap_ and Krolia watched as her figure that was supposed to be a Galra had it’s head sharply decapitated and it fell onto her blanket covered lap. Her knife glinting brightly in her hand. 

“Your project goin’ well over there?” James asked, trying not to look too closely at the knife in his partner’s hand and rubbing the small bags beneath his eyes. 

“It’s fine,” she muttered and tossed it into the pile while flicking the head alongside it. “What are you making now?” 

Krolia looked at the odd wooden chair that James had finally assembled, next to the crib, he certainly found a way to keep himself busy. She still remembered helping him paint the place where their child would sleep, playfully dabbing paint onto his arm on “accident”. She tried to get a better view, but was having a hard time moving from the couch, and that was just in trying to lift herself up. 

“A rocking chair,” he said as he hammered in the last nail and groaned as he stood up to stretch out his back, “Ta-da~.”

“And the purpose of having another chair is…?”

“Well, it’s for you, and the baby,” James said as he gestured to Krolia’s stomach. “I know you hate feelin’ cooped up, and I think I read that it’s good for the two of you to get lots of fresh air. So it’ll help you move around a bit when you’re feelin’ restless.”

“I do that when I train,” Krolia pointed out.

Even when her stomach began to grow until it felt like she was carrying a rock over her stomach instead of her soon-to-be child, it never stopped her from training either in the morning or the afternoon. Training helped her destress, and so far, the only other thing that was so ingrained in her she couldn’t stop it if she could. As far as she knew, if she was able to keep herself healthy with a daily routine and exercise (the stairs did not count, despite how winded she got after the first flight) she felt that the baby would also be fine. Perhaps when they were old enough, she’d be able to train them the same way she’d done for other Blade members.

“I know, but it never hurts to learn how to relax. Come on, try it out,” James stood off to the side and gestured for her to sit in the newly assembled chair. “Give it a test run.”

“Not that I’m criticizing your craftsmanship, but doesn’t the chair seem a little… unstable?” Krolia looked down at the curved feet, already picturing it tossing her backwards. “I’m fairly certain that if I want to be able to sit in a stable chair, the feet do _not_ look like they’d be able to hold me up for more than a couple of ticks.”

“Yeah, I guess it does look like that,” James laughed, but put a hand on the back of the chair. “But I promise you, nothing bad’ll happen. I’ll make sure of it.”

Krolia didn’t doubt his words, but she couldn’t help worrying. Maybe it was because of the baby, but she was now extremely aware of everything around her that can harm herself and them. As she slowly sat down in the chair, putting her hands on the armrest, James had suddenly moved his hand away, causing her to almost jump out of the seat in surprise as one hand grasped the wooden rest and the other wrapped protectively around her stomach. James then ran back and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Sorry, sorry, didn’t think you’d lean that far back on your first try,” he said as Krolia glared up at him, she could swear he was trying not to laugh. “Just, lean back gently, and don’t push too hard. The chair will do the rest.”

Krolia had to take a moment to get her heart to stop beating so fast, but when she managed to calm down, she followed James’ instructions. Once he moved his hand away again, it was actually not that bad. After a few moments of rocking back and forth, even the low creaking sound coming from the wood was becoming rather pleasant to listen to. 

“I see why you humans call it a rocking chair.”

“Nice, isn’t it?” James asked, smiling down at his work. “You like it?”

“It’s quite comfortable after the fact that it nearly killed me,” Krolia teased.

“Not everythin’ on earth is tryin’ to kill you.”

Krolia merely shrugged her shoulders as she rocked back and forth for a little longer. 

“I know you’re enjoyin’ yourself, but I’m gonna have to take it from you now.” James said, feeling genuinely remorseful at having to take this away from her. 

“A few more ticks?” Krolia asked with the saddest expression she could muster. 

“I need to see if it needs a few more adjustments and then move it outside,” James replied, trying not to give into that look.

Krolia pouted and slowly pulled herself up off the chair. James helped steady her and lead her back to the couch where she sat down and sighed in slight relief. 

“You can use it again after I’m done, okay?” 

She nodded quietly and decided to try and read instead. Time started to feel slow again, and she wanted nothing more than to be able to move around like she used to. For now, she’d just have to get through this. 

* * *

 

She had tried to sleep. She really did, but she eventually gave up and slid out of their bed, careful not to disturb James as she quietly walked out of the room, tossing a heavy jacket over her body. As she walked out into the night air with her knife clenched in her other hand, she slowly made her way towards the rocking chair and sat down. Humans may have the most odd ideas for food, clothing and other things, that she’s seen so far, but she had to admit that they might have the right ideas for some of their inventions. 

Krolia tried to make herself relax, focusing on the rocking motion of the chair and the large starry sky she’d come to love and appreciate. She absently ran a hand over her stomach and started to talk out loud to herself.  James on occasion would talk to the baby, sometimes asking for Krolia to join in, but she refused, it was embarassing enough to see her partner leaning down to her stomach and speaking to it like it could respond back.  It seemed silly, she never did this before, but it did help her pass the time and it allowed her to believe she was bonding with her child and having conversations with them.  It also felt incredibly personal, having someone she trusted to talk to about things. She loved James, but there were thoughts or memories she'd rather not burden her partner with. 

  “Look at this planet you’re going to be born into. You’ll never have to know about the war beyond these stars, or the price we had to pay to try and have a world like this.”

She held up her knife, glaring brilliantly under the moonlight she could catch and staring at the light. Sometimes she wondered if she looked close enough, she’d be able to see all of her comrades, fallen and those she believed were still alive. Her family and home, still so far away, but she hasn't missed it as much as she thought she would. A part of her felt guilty about this thought. 

“So many have died in order to be able to have a universe where we didn’t have to keep fighting, where we wouldn’t have to worry about our children being born in a world where they would have to grow up to become soldiers themselves.” She turned it over so she could look at the jewel near the hilt, faintly seeing the Marmoran symbol etched in it. “For a future where we can truly call one of peace. Knowledge or death.”

Krolia sighed at that old phrase, one she used to utter with such conviction, but now, she wondered if she still felt those words still held anymore meaning for her. She felt a small nudge coming from her belly and looked down, almost expecting to see something bulging out of her skin. 

“You don’t like to hear your mom talk about all of these things? Am I boring you? Sorry, I’ll stop.” She smiled and rubbed her stomach, continuing with her rocking. “Your father and I still haven’t thought of an actual name for you. Is that why you’ve been kicking me so often today?” 

She felt another nudge and laughed. “Hm, I wish I could ask you, then we’d have an easier time figuring this out. Do you want to leave all of the work to us? We still aren’t sure yet, but I know you’ll be something to brighten our world once you do come. Just like these stars lighting the sky.”

A gentler nudge this time, and Krolia was mildly startled, looking down at her stomach and pressing insistently against it. “”Starlight”?Is that something you want to be called?” 

She felt the gentle nudge and laughed, “Can’t argue with that. Starlight it is then. If your father were here I wonder if he’d approve of that nickname?”

“He’d think it’d be pretty damn cute,”James said, his head just out the doorway, but Krolia managed to keep a facade of calmness.

“How long have you-?”

“Not too long, just heard the “Starlight”, part, and I do think it’d be cute. Better to call them “starlight” instead of “kiddo” all the time.”

She watched as he walked out of the doorway and stood just out of arms reach from her chair.

“Did I wake you?” She asked.

“Nah, I just kinda woke up and wondered where my beautiful partner went,” he said. “You feelin’ alright? You don’t usually come out this late.”

“Just thinking about… everything.” Krolia said, turning her blade in her palm carefully. He understood that expression, remembering when she’d have moments of looking back into her past, a place so different than what he could fully comprehend. 

“That’s a lot of stuff,” James said as he walked in front of her, so he could look her in the eyes. “It’s about the war, isn’t it?”  
“Yes,” Krolia said, moving her eyes away from her knife as if trying to break a spell. “Things are so different on earth that I sometimes forget there’s still a war going on with the Galra. There’s still something out there that can still threaten everything in this universe. It’s hard to completely repress all of it.”

“I understand,” James said, trying to be as helpful as he could, “I mean we had a World War Three I think a couple of centuries ago-?”

Krolia balked, “World War _Three_?”

She remembered watching some old documentaries on the wars that humans fought, but she hadn’t fully comprehended that this planet had wars across its history, and those that were probably still fresh in the minds of others.  
“Yeah, we fucked up twice, and we’re kinda hoping the third time will stick. You know, rule of three and all.” He leaned against the railing and rubbing the back of his neck, “Maybe if we’re lucky, World War Four will have something to do with space.”

Krolia dropped her head, “I’d give anything to make sure that day will never come.”

“You won’t have to,” James said. “I don’t want you to worry about it.”  
“How can I not when it’s the reason why I’m even here?” Krolia asked, feeling a little angered at being told to just not think about it. “

“What I’m tryin’ to say was that I understand if it’s something you’re so concerned about. It’s hard not to worry about what can happen with something as big as that, but sometimes I think you forget about what’s happening right now,” He took a step closer, knelt down, and gently placed a hand on her stomach. “We’re here with you. If there’s somethin’ that’s botherin’ you, tell us. Don’t feel like you have to do everythin’ on your.”

Krolia felt a smile coming across her face as she gently placed her own hand over her partner’s, “There’s just not a lot going on, so I’m left alone to my thoughts for most of the day.”

“Don’t be sorry, I get that havin’ nothing but yourself can make people go to some pretty dark places.” James replied and his eyes widened in surprise. “Did they just kick?”

“Yes,” Krolia said, enjoying her partner’s reaction. “I think they’re saying that they agree with you.”

“We’ll make one hell of a team,” James laughed as he gently rubbed circles around her belly. “I’ll be right back, just gonna grab a blanket.”  
Krolia leaned forward a bit so her lips could trace the top of his head, “Going to watch the stars with us?”

“Wouldn’t wish for anything else.”

 

* * *

It felt like any other day. While they were expecting the baby to come soon seeing as how she was at the end of her trimester, but they didn’t have an exact date. 

She was just washing the dishes, keeping her mind off of things when she felt a pull. She thought it was just one of the things that happened before, but when felt something different she looked down and noticed her water broke. Then the heavy breathing came and she clutched onto her stomach, as well as trying not to throw herself onto the floor. 

“James,” she said weakly before gasping and managing a yell. “ **JAMES**!”

He rushed over to her, only noticing his partner’s face starting to break out into a sweat. 

Only three words left her mouth, but they were the only words he needed to know. 

“ _The baby’s coming_."

* * *

 

Hours might have passed. She wasn’t sure. It was becoming even harder to keep anything but the word “push” and “breathe” in her head while she was blinded by the waves of pain that would come with the contractions. She thought she was used to pain, but the simulators and hours of training could do nothing in preparing her for something like this. 

James had managed to steer her onto the couch, grabbing everything he could to help her. Getting buckets of water, towels, bottles of water, a bucket of ice cubes and more. As things started to get rolling, Krolia could barely talk, either growling in pain or screaming like she was being stabbed. In this case, she would have taken being stabbed over what she was going through.

“James, I love you- _AGH_! But, you- _urgh_ -! _Can go fuck yourself_!”  
“I know, I know,” James said, dabbing her forehead with a cool towel and had to keep himself from holding her hand or kissing her cheek. If he made any contact with her, she would have grabbed whatever was close and not let go. “You can kick my ass into space or whatever when this is over if it’ll make you feel better.”

He tried to remain as calm as he could as he eased her through each push and fed her small cubes of ice when he could. “You’re doing great, just focus on breathing and pushing. If you need to rest, rest.”

“Don’t, think, anyone- how can I?” She gasped, pieces of ice slipping out of her mouth. “It hurts too much. It hurts. James. It hurts.”

“You can do this,” James cooed, dabbing the sides of her mouth with a wet cloth, trying to keep her focused. “I know you’ve been through worse, this will just be one of the many battles you’ve fought and won. You can do this.”

That seemed to help clear her head, and so the hours continued to march on. A mixture of screams, blood and sweat mixed in the air, and by the time the head was out, James felt almost certain that Krolia was going to pass out. While he did help with other deliveries, it didn’t mean it still wasn’t an incredibly jarring experience. He kept encouraging her to push, to keep breathing, to stay with them and finally after a snip, it was done. 

The first thing Krolia heard was a cry coming from somewhere below her, and her eyes began to well up with more tears. Relief was the biggest emotion she felt, and an overwhelming sense of love for those cries. While she wanted to look up and see her child, she was too exhausted to lift her head. James set off to quickly wipe up all of the blood, and keeping their child warm. 

She decided to just stare at the ceiling and collect herself as she heard James cooing over the baby in his arms. Her sense of time was extremely broken at this point, only looking up at the window to see that it was night, and she managed to turn her head so she could see tears streaming down James’ face as well, cradling the baby in his arms, carefully wrapped in a clean towel. 

“Look bud, look at your mom,” James said, making sure Krolia could clearly see him. “He’s gonna grow up to be a fighter, I can feel it.”

“… my little starlight,” Krolia whispered, trying to lift her hand up, but only managing to drag it out enough to touch her son’s cheeks. It felt like her arms were being held down by weights, and she couldn’t do much more than that. 

James thankfully noticed this, gesturing to the buttons on Krolia’s shirt. 

“It’s good for babies to get skin-to-skin contact with their parents.”

She nodded and allowed him to unbutton her shirt, and then she felt something warm settle onto her chest. Krolia could see nothing else besides her son, running her thumb over his head. She looked at his skin, noting that it looked nothing like hers, and the bits of hair he had was matted black like James’. One part of her felt relieved that her son didn’t look like her, he’d be able to blend in amongst human society and live peacefully amongst them. While the other was a little disappointed that he didn’t look too Galra, she didn’t care. 

This was _her_ son. This was _her_ child. This would be someone she’d do absolutely anything to protect, and she knew she’d lay her life down in a heartbeat if it meant he would be safe. 

“Hello, starlight,” she said, watching her son’s eyes trying to open, and when it did, she caught sight of what she could only describe as James’ eyes. 

James pulled up a chair and leaned over, “He’s beautiful."

“He’s perfect,” Krolia agreed.

They sat quietly after the hours of turmoil, enjoying the moment where Krolia and James began to understand what new role they had to play. Something that was once two people had slowly bloomed into a comfortbale three. 

* * *

 

“Look, it’s such beautiful weather today,” she held her son in her arms, his eyes slowly closing, heavy with sleep. “Don’t you want to look at it, starlight?”  
“I think it’s his naptime,” James said, standing next to Krolia and looking down at their son. “He usually falls asleep around this time.”

“Shame, I wanted to show him how nice earth weather could be,” Krolia sighed, but didn’t seem too disappointed with that news. 

“He’ll see plenty of sunrises, sunsets, and starry skies when he’s able to,” James assured.

“Want me to hold him?” James asked, wondering if her arms were getting tired andoutstretching his arms, but Krolia shook her head. “It’s only been a week, and if you get tired…”

“Let me hold him for a little longer,” Krolia said, wanting to selfishly hold her son forever.

“Alright, but then I get to hold him for longer once you’re done.”

Krolia laughed and watched as her baby tightened his fist as he dozed off into sleep. They both smiled at their son, and looked at one another. 

“I think it’s time we named him,” James said. “As much as I don’t mind his nickname, we need to give him an actual name. You have anything you like?”  
Krolia thought for a moment, going through each of the names she considered. She remembered the one she settled on, and spoke it aloud. 

“We'll name him “Yorak”.” 

Krolia looked at her child fondly, swaddling him in the warm blankets and watching him sleeping peacefully. She believed it to be a fitting name for her child, one that would give him the warrior’s spirit he would need to get through life. She was so distracted by her child that she didn’t notice James’ expression. 

James quickly glanced between his partner and child, noticing the heartfelt look she was giving. As much as he loved her and wanted nothing more than for her to bond more with their son… this was one thing he didn’t think he’d allow himself to let slide. That name would probably work out in space, but he wasn’t sure how he would explain to humans on earth how to pronounce his son’s names and what language it came from. 

“How about “Keith”?” He suggested. 

To his surprise (and relief), she agreed. It took her a moment to consider it, but she did like the sound of “Keith” over Yorak. As long as it was a strong name, she wasn’t going to complain. 

“Keith. I like that.”

They both stared lovingly at their son, sharing this moment of blissful tranquility for things to come. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going to move into my dorm this Thursday, so I'll try and see if I can get anything done by then.  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	16. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family life with Krolia, Keith and James.

“Come here, Keith,” Krolia said, holding out a small toy for Keith that James had made out of spare rubber and she watched her child try and roll onto his side to grab it. She smiled as he stubbornly refused to loosen his grip once he got a hold on the toy after a minute of furiously crawling, and she could have easily lifted him up like a fish on a line if she wanted to. 

“So strong, you’ll certainly be a warrior someday,” Krolia said as Keith’s mouth opened and closed as if he were trying to eat the air, but he didn’t make any sounds. 

He was only seven months old, but already crawling so quickly and she was surprised when she saw him one morning grabbing the bars to his crib and attempting to stand up. Just yesterday, she tried to help him stand, and he was able to walk five steps before eventually flopping to the ground. Despite the number of falls he’s taken, she was astounded to see him rarely cry. She was a little worried that Keith may not be able to speak, but James chalked it up to him just being quiet, like his mother.

“Maybe he’s also got the fighting genes from you,” James would joke. 

Krolia looked down at her son, and some days, she wondered if Keith had no Galra genes since she couldn’t see any similarities of herself in him. No matter how hard she stared, all she saw was a young human boy. Even though this part of her mind was still processing that, she loved her child regardless. 

“When he’s old enough, I’ll train him in the ways of the Blade.” Krolia replied, half serious, half jesting. Keith leaned into her lap, and she gently ran her hand through the bits of hair he started to grow on his head. 

Whenever he looked at her in awe, she wondered if he knew she always saw him that way as well. She sighed and rubbed her eyes, feeling just a little tired from all of the chasing and playing she did earlier. 

“You want to take a break?” James asked and Krolia had to keep herself from protectively pulling her baby even closer to her than he already was. 

She had become so precautious around her child after his birth, and rarely let him out of her sight. One week after he was born, James had to drive him out into town to the nearest hospital so he could get shots. While she was nervous at the thought of having to be without her son for a few hours, James assured her that getting these shots would decrease the chance of Keith getting sick, so she allowed it. 

When they both returned, she saw Keith fast asleep, bundled up warmly, but the area around his eyes all puffy and red from crying. James’ disheveled hair seemed proof enough of how hard it was for him to calm Keith down. They both tried to be fair and let each of them have equal time with Keith, but Krolia noted that James would usually let her hold, play or lay next to Keith longer than he would. She didn’t think about bringing it up, and felt that James would just say that Keith liked spending more time with her. 

She gently lifted up her baby and gave him to her partner, who watched as Keith stared at his face and turned to Krolia, trying to go towards her and whining loudly. It wasn’t a terrified or distressed sound, but he did manage to sound a little annoyed that he was pulled away from her.

“Did I tell you he was like this too when I took him to get his shots?” James laughed and handed Keith back to Krolia. “He was lookin’ everywhere for you and I think he even tried to say “mama”. Little guy was so strong another nurse had to come in and help me keep him still.”

Krolia’s heart sank a little at this information.

“That must have been incredibly difficult for you,” Krolia said as she took Keith back into her arms and saw him happily clapping. “Did you have to explain why his mother couldn’t be there with you?”

“I said that you were on bed rest and couldn’t make it, thankfully, they didn’t ask too many questions after that.”

“I didn’t know that,” Krolia said, feeling guilty that she wouldn’t be able to be around her partner or Keith when things like these would come up. They both knew what they were getting into when they decided to have Keith, but it still stung when it happened. 

“You seemed so happy to have Keith back when we came home, I didn’t want to ruin that by tellin’ you. All I thought that was important for you to hear was that the doctor’s said he was a healthy baby.”

She nodded but didn’t meet James’ eyes. It still felt like she was missing parts of Keith’s now beginning life, and while she wanted to be there with her partner and child, she was always brought back to the heart-breaking realization of who she was. The moment the people of this planet find out who she was, not only would she be in danger, but so would Keith, and James. That was something she still feared no matter how hard she focused on the life she was trying to live now.

The action that brought her out of her thoughts and she saw James gently putting his hand on top of hers, with Keith still attempting to reach for his mother’s face and grab the marks on her cheeks. 

“Don’t think about the things you regret too much,” James assured her. “Let’s try and take this one step at a time.”

“Alright,” Krolia replied after a moment of silence, and when she looked down at Keith, he was gently kicking his legs in the air like he was peddling. “Do you want to try walking again, starlight?”

“Let’s see if he can break his record,” James grinned as he gently stood Keith up and slowly let go.

The two parents left their son to his own devices as he looked around curiously, not making any babbling noises as he took a small step forward and they watched in anticipation. They counted up until seventeen before Keith buckled forward, his knees hitting the newly carpeted floor, followed by his hands and then rolling onto his side. 

“Good job, Keith,” Krolia smiled as James crawled over to Keith and lifted him up. 

“Looks like we’re gonna have to start gettin’ used to you walkin’ around here soon, huh kiddo?” He gently bumped his nose against Keith’s who blinked in surprise. 

James then tossed Keith upwards, causing him to laugh gleefully and kick his feet out in excitement once he fell back into his father’s outstretched hands. 

“While you do that, I’ll go grab some food.” Krolia said and stood up to head to the kitchen.

“And how long will that take?” James asked after catching a giggling Keith in his hands again. 

Krolia hummed, “Hmm, maybe ten, twenty minutes, you can play with him for that long, can’t you?”  
“Wait, what? My arms are gonna be tired by then!”  
“You chose to play with Keith, you get to be the one who’ll be exhausted in ten minutes,” she said, patting Keith on the head. “Your father needs to work out some more, so will you help him with that Keith?”

He gurgled in response and clapped his hands, begging for more.

“Ha,ha,” James said, slightly out of breath as he lifted their child up into the air again. “Just make it quick.”

“No guarantees,” Krolia laughed as she took her time getting food for themselves and Keith. 

By the time she returned, James was laying on the floor with beads of sweat pouring down his face, with Keith patting his chin as if thinking that would get him back up in the air sooner. He seemed to have ver little energy left as he lethargically wiped the back of his hand across his forehead and looked up at Krolia with exhausted eyes. 

“Want a break?” Krolia asked as she knelt down and kissed James’ forehead.

“… please?” He said between breaths. 

She picked up Keith off of James’ chest and played with Keith. These were how most of their days went, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want them to end. 

* * *

 

As much as she loved being a parent, a sleep schedule was definitely something babies needed to have programmed into them. They had given Keith a schedule, set up bed-times and nap-times, yet he still woke them up late at night or early mornings with his cries. These were one of the few times were Krolia would gladly let James take over on looking after Keith while she tried to get back to sleep. 

Yet one night, after managing to doze off to sleep after one of Keith’s cries, she later felt a small warm hand pawing at her face, and she grumpily opened up one eye to see Keith looking at her in wonder. 

“James… couldn’t you just leave him in the crib?” Krolia grumbled, gesturing vaguely towardswhere the crib stood. “Did you check his diapers or anything?”

“Yes, but he’s probably worried that you’re going away, or something. I’ve tried all of the other things the books suggested, but I’ve given up. Let’s just let him lay with us for now,” James muttered, clearly not taking any of this too seriously as he climbed back in bed and threw the blankets back over the three of them. “He’ll stop cryin’ once he sees you’re here.”  
She grumbled in reply, but tucked Keith under her hand and nuzzled his head against her nose. He still smelled like the baby shampoo they used a few hours ago for his bath that James had bought, and it reminded her a lot of fresh laundry or flowers. She was too sleepy to try and pick out the specific smell. 

“Should we just give Keith his own room?” 

Krolia knew it was easier for them to keep Keith next to where they slept so they could be at his side when he needed, but it made her feel a little less grumpy to try and plan for the future.  
“Too much work,” James answered sleepily. “He’ll get his own room once he’s bigger, I guess?”

“When will that be?”

“Once he’s three, maybe?” James wondered as he lifted his arm up and laid it over Krolia’s side. “We can worry about this another time, right now, sleep sounds nice.”

He promptly ended that sentence with a head rolling into the pillow so his face was covered in darkness. This left Krolia with the only other awake being in the room, her tiny son.  
Krolia looked at Keith as he grabbed onto her shirt, and she attempted to get him to loosen his grip, but just gave up after it seemed like he would tear it off. He then started to nibble at the strap and she decided that sitting up and maybe gently rocking him to sleep would be a better alternative than him trying to eat her clothes. 

“Keith, wait,” she sighed in a hushed voice as she sat up, supporting his head with one of her hands and she pushed the pillow up so her back was leaning against something besides the hard wooden headboard. “What did you want, starlight?”

Keith’s mouth opened and closed as he made incomprehensible noises. It felt so different actually communicating and physically holding him than when he spent months inside her belly. She wasn’t sure which felt more personal. 

“Do you want something to eat?”  
More noises, but he didn’t seem interested even when she mentioned eating. Mentioning food in any way usually got him excited. 

“No? Then were you just looking for me?”  
Keith’s eyes wandered to her hand and he started to slap his own against it. It wasn’t hard enough that it hurt, but Krolia still pretended to be shocked and surprised. Keith paused and continued clapping his hand onto hers with glee, his smile spreading impossibly wide. 

“So strong!” She said as she lightly grabbed his hands and placed them onto her cheeks. “Are you already learning how to fight? Have you been watching me train?”

Keith’s head tilted to the side and then turned to the night stand where he caught sight of her blade and started to make grabbing motions for it. It was a little hard to miss the way it glowed under the moonlight. She looked back and forth between the two and reached over for her knife, gently holding it in her hand. 

“Do you want to look at it?” Krolia asked, her mind still a little groggy from sleep, but she wanted to do something to distract her child. 

She held her blade far away from Keith, but watched in amusement as he stared at his own reflection, and tried to make a grab for it. While it didn’t expend much effort for her in holding her son back with one arm, it was still entertaining to see him try and wiggle his way out. She had the feeling that if she allowed him to take it, he’d probably treat it like one of his rattles. 

“This isn’t a toy, starlight. This is something I used to defend myself, your father, and also you. It’s a symbol of protection,” she mused at how Kolivan would take her interpretation of the Marmoran symbol to her child. “Perhaps one day this knife will belong to you.”  
He looked up to her, now stretching his arms out to try and pat her face. When she moved away, he took to bouncing on her lap. 

“He’ll be able to use it when he’s older,” James grumbled, turning his head up from the pillow so he could see Krolia playing with Keith. “For now, our kid should _not_ be playin’ with knives.”

“He’s not playing with it, he’s just looking at it,” Krolia argued, feeling Keith try to tug on the collar of her shirt. “I know to keep dangerous things out of a child’s reach.”

“Well, now he knows there’s something shiny in the house and he’s gonna want it,” James joked. “Guess it’s time to say good-bye to the car keys.”

Keith’s head jerked towards James and the two of them laughed. 

“Maybe not then.”

* * *

 

Despite most of the days feeling long and sometimes uneventful, she took solace in raising their child, watching him grow right before her eyes and she enjoyed watching her partner playing with him as well. There were days when they would take Keith outside and let him play, and he would always get excited when either James or herself rode the speeder around just so it wouldn’t gather dust outside. 

They soon found out that another way to get Keith to sleep faster than rocking him was just to fly around for a bit, and then he’d be out like the light. The one time Krolia let Keith ride with her, he refused to be moved from the machine and they had to wait for him to fall asleep so they could leave.

“Promise me he won’t fly this until he can actually reach the pedals,” Krolia told James after she had taken the speeder out and Keith was sleeping on her back in a makeshift harness that they made for him. 

“You don’t really think I’ll actually take our kid out for a spin on that thing when he’s so young, would you?” James asked as he walked towards them and helped unbuckle Keith from her back. 

“You’ve managed to still surprise me to this day,” Krolia said as she handed Keith over to him. “I can go get dinner started while you take him up to nap.”

“Sure, I’ll do that,” James said and walked inside their home. 

Krolia paused to look around, it wasn’t because anything had really changed, but she felt something was different. Maybe she was just being a little paranoid because of Keith, and she didn’t want anything to hurt her child. Or it could be something else. She couldn’t pin down what it was, and it always infuriated her when she didn’t know what was going on around her. 

“Hey, Keith’s up there takin’ his afternoon nap,” James said, waking out on the porch. “You thinking about the future again?”

“Something like that,” Krolia shrugged as she approached him. “I can’t help wondering what can happen from here on out.”

“We’ll figure something out together. We’ve done it so far, we’ll be able to get through this too.”

“I just, I’m worried about him. What is he going to do when he’s older? He can’t be out here forever, and one day we’ll have to explain this,” she paused to gesture to herself. “The war with the Galra, Voltron, and the Blue Lion as well. How do you explain all of that to your _child_?”

“Things’ll work out, and we’ll just have to tell him bits at a time." James turned to look back in this house. "We can do it together. I won’t be able to be much help with that, since it might be better coming directly from you, but we'll manage.”

“Perhaps,” Krolia sighed as she walked up the steps and stood at James’ side. “Thank you, for always supporting me.”

“I’d go to the ends of the earth for you if you asked,” James smiled and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips that she would have happily melted into. 

“I forgot how corny your lines were,” she giggled. 

“Well, it got us both together, didn’t it?”

“Hm, I’d have to say “no” to that assumption,” she placed a kiss onto his cheek before he had a chance to respond. “I’ll go get dinner ready, and I’ll feed Keith tonight.”

“Sounds good,” James said as he followed her inside. 

_Yes, there’s nothing I really need to fear at the moment_ , Krolia assured herself. _Things will work out. Somehow._

* * *

 

“He’s even more restless tonight than before. What could be bothering him?” Krolia wondered that night, staring at her son who was excitedly bouncing up and down in his crib. They had set him to sleep not too long ago, leaving James and herself to what was supposed to be a quiet night of reading together. Yet when Keith woke up crying loudly, it had barely been two hours. 

“I’m sure we checked his diapers, gave him a bath fed him, why could he be acting like this? Is this normal for human babies?”

In James’ perspective, he seemed more energetic than fidgety. He was pretty certain that Keith just wanted to play, despite it being at least one in the morning. After they both got upstairs to see why he was crying, their son slowly quieted down the moment he saw them. Like he felt or saw something that terrified him that went away once they arrived. 

“Maybe he sees a ghost?” James shrugged.

The expression Krolia gave him was something he could describe as one of wondering what idea gave him this inconceivable concept. Or if he had gotten so little sleep that he was just wildly speculating on what was the cause of their restless child. 

“What? I didn’t believe in aliens ’til almost a couple years ago. Ghosts could very well be the next real thing.”

“It’s not a ghost. There are many things I’ve encountered in space, but ghosts aren’t one of them.” Krolia argued, reaching her hand inside and allowing Keith to grab it, looking at it with curiosity before gnawing eagerly on it. “Perhaps he’s just hungry?”

James was a little put down that ghosts were off the table, but he looked closer at Keith, who was just looking between the two of them and giggling. No one would have thought that just a few moments ago, he sounded like he was screaming bloody murder. 

“Is it my turn to heat up the milk, or your turn?” James asked, pretending to yawn and had to not laugh at Krolia’s annoyed face. “Kiddin’, I know it’s my turn, you can look after Keith while I get everythin'.”

After a quick run downstairs, heating up the milk and checking the temperature, he returned to see Krolia gently snuggling Keith in his blanket and singing a lullaby to him that James wasn’t familiar with. 

“That a Galra lullaby?” He asked as he sat next to Krolia and handed her the bottle. 

“Yes, it was something my father would sing a lot to me when I was young. I also heard other mothers singing it to their children.”

He watched her eyes become so gentle as she nudged the tip of the bottle to Keith who gurgled expectantly, trying to put his hands on the sides of the bottle. Krolia watched as Keith eagerly began to suck on the bottle, as if trying to see how much milk he can drink in a short amount of time. 

Krolia and James exchanged a small glance, but it was filled with nothing but joy. Keith was a gift the two of them would gladly protect and look after with their lives, only wishing for this memory to remain for as long as possible. 

However, the moment was brought to a halt when Krolia noticed her knife glowing, turning her head to the night stand where she normally kept it, and James followed her line of sight, looking at it in surprise. He looked like he wanted to ask what was going on, but somehow, he had a gut feeling that was telling him nothing good would come out of it. 

“Galras,” Krolia said simply turning her head to the window, her once gentle looking eyes were full of alert and shock. 

James eyes immediately widened in fear as he turned to the window, unsure of what he was going to see besides the starry sky. As Krolia walked over to Keith’s crib and gently placed him down in it, she plucked the bottle from his mouth, setting the milk aside and draping the blanket over the lower half of her child’s body. He whined and tried to grab onto her shirt, but she easily dislodged his fingers with little effort. Keith then tried to grab onto Krolia’s arms until his little nails left little scratch marks on her skin that she easily ignored. 

“Not now, starlight,” she muttered, placing his pacifier back in his mouth and gently stroking his hair. He went quiet after that, his face wholly innocent to the disaster that was now occurring right outside their home. 

She then ran up to the window herself and leaned over to look out, staring at the sky as if expecting it to be on fire. After a few moments, three purple streaks of light streak across the sky towards earth, and in the direction of the Blue Lion’s whereabouts. 

“They’re scouts. They must’ve picked the Blue Lion’s signal.” She gripped her hands tightly against the wooden below the window, her mind racing through all of the options they had in terms of defense. “We need to stop them before they report back to their command.”

“What’s the plan?” James asked, no hesitation or doubt in his voice. Sounding like a soldier awaiting instructions for battle than a civilian. 

Krolia looked back at her knife and then back to James. They both turned to see Keith in his crib, who had stopped squirming and was slowly falling asleep. No matter what, they were going to make sure that Keith would not be harmed in this expedition. She took a moment to close her eyes before opening them and looking up at her partner. 

“I’m working on that. First, we need to change. Neither of us will be able to last long in what we’re currently wearing. I have something near my suit that should be helpful.”

James nodded and the two ran towards their areas of the house. While Krolia felt back in her element, she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread creeping up on her and what these scouts arrival could entail. In their bedroom closet, she moved out a box that held her old Galra uniform, staring at the colors and felt the material. There was a mixture of nostalgia and irritation burning in her when she saw that uniform. Knowing that her own kind were now here, threatening the peace of this planet, she felt more angered than terrified as she tore off her civilian clothing and donned on her suit. 

Next to that box was another one that she pulled out and opened the lid to look at the inside contents. She remembered making these a long time ago out of the materials of her ship that they managed to scavenge and never thought she would have to use them like this. Krolia deftly slammed the cover back on, grabbed for the nearest bag and made her way back upstairs. 

Time was of the essence, and neither of them could lose anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gettin' close to the end!!  
> I am so sorry for posting this so late guys, but that just means I'll probably do a double update on Saturday/Sunday. Still getting used to college, but I'm starting classes tomorrow R.I.P.  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	17. Vrepit Sa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The scouts have arrived, and it's up to Krolia and James to stop them from taking the Blue Lion. But one part of their plan doesn't work out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: There will be mild descriptions of blood, violence, and especially with Krolia mildly torturing a Galra scout.  
> Starts: “You lowered yourself, to having that primitive being help you-?”  
> Ends: “Vrepit sa.” Krolia said, stepping off of him and wiping the knife clean.

“Did you find everything you needed?” James asked as he tightened the gloves on his hands. 

Krolia nodded and recognized his uniform from pictures he had shown her of when he worked as a firefighter. She didn’t think he’d ever wear that outfit again. 

“I have explosives.” She said, as she tossed the bag onto the bed, spilling out the explosives she made onto the sheets and made sure her knife was safely strapped behind her in its sheath. “They aren’t powerful enough to destroy a fighter. If we detonate them in the intake valves, they could stop them from taking off.”

James solemnly took the bag and threw the strap over his shoulder, making sure everything was in place, and then looked to Krolia as she held up the detonator. 

“When they’re set, use this to detonate the charges and take out the ships.”

He seemed to be running the plan through his head after he took the detonator and asked Krolia his next question.  
“What will you be doing?”

Although her knife wasn’t currently in her hand, she could feel her fist tighten as if she were holding it and her eyes narrow. She knew what she had to do.  
“I’m gonna find out what the scouts know and get rid of them.”

She turned to the crib to see Keith now sleeping peacefully and James followed her line of sight. 

“We’ll protect him, don’t worry,” James assured her, walking over and putting a hand on the top of the crib. “The last thing these Galra’s will be expecting is someone else knowing about the lion.”

“I’m more worried about you,” Krolia admitted, going to stand by James’ side. “I’ve told you stories about the Galra and gave you my experience, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be fully prepared for the real thing. If they find you, they will kill you.”

“I don’t mind,” James’ face steeled itself, knowing full well the consequences of his actions if he were to be caught. “All I care about is making sure they never find the lion, and that Keith’ll be safe.”

“You always say things like that, putting everyone else’s lives over your own,” she sighed as she turned to Keith and put the pacifier that dropped out of his mouth back in. “I just want you to know that your life matters as well.”

“If you’re there, I know we’ll be okay,” James said, running a hand over Krolia’s cheek and she had to try so hard to not lean into that touch. “But right now we need to go, the longer we stay here, the closer they are to likely getting the lion.”

She inclined her head as she stroked Keith’s cheek with her finger and followed James downstairs. When they went out into the cool night air that she used to love, it now began to feel like a ticking timer. James wordlessly hopped onto the speeder and Krolia followed close behind, wrapping her arms securely around his waist and felt the hum of the engine come to life. They sped off faster then they ever had before towards the Blue Lion’s location, expecting nothing but the worst. 

* * *

 

Once they arrived, James parked the speeder out of sight and quietly jumped off with Krolia right behind him. They both climbed up the rocky peaks and looked over their hiding place to find three Galra fighters parked right outside of the cave. They looked similar to the one Krolia had when she crashed, but since hers was so badly damaged, he couldn’t tell how accurate that assumption was. Krolia scanned the area as well, and based on her expression, she didn’t see anything that would warrant a closer inspection. 

“You remember how to set up the bombs?” She asked and looked at the bag. 

“Press the screen, and it should set up the rest, right?”

“Yes,” Although there didn’t seem to be anyone around, Krolia spoke in a hushed voice. “I’m going to go ahead and look for the scouts, you take care of the fighters.” 

James gave her a thumbs-up. But before he could move out, he felt a tug at his wrist and saw Krolia looking at him with the most worried expression he’d ever seen her wear since they had Keith. 

“Please, promise me you’ll be careful,” she said. “I don’t- don’t let your guard down.”

James leaned forward to plant a small kiss to her lips, giving her a reassuring smile. “I’m more worried about you, but I know nothing bad will happen to any of us. We’ll get back to Keith after this.”

She paused before throwing her arms around his neck, and he held her back, wondering if the shivering was from the cold she felt, or if she was as terrified as she refused to let on. He held her back, trying not to let her feel how nervous he was. 

“Be safe.” She told him, as if she were trying to put a magic spell of protection over him. If she could, she would have followed him, but they needed to at two different places. 

“You too, I love you.” He replied. 

After she let go, she stood up and began to run towards the cave entrance, nimbly jumping over the rocks and landing gracefully on the ground. He watched as she slipped inside and waited until he started to head over to his task. 

The hardest part was just getting down safely, but once he was down, it was easy enough to run towards the ships and find the valves that Krolia had talked about earlier. He reached into his bag and carefully took out the bomb. Once he placed it inside the valve, it attached itself and he set it up. A small chill ran down his spine, but he was more focused on getting to the next fighter. After he had set the second one up, he began sprinting towards the last aircraft, hoping to get all of this over with so his nerves could finally calm down. 

He just needed to get to-

The last thing he expected was what he could only describe as a burning sensation shooting straight through his right shoulder as he collapsed to the ground with everything immediately going dark. 

* * *

 

Krolia quietly stepped across the cave floor, listening for the scouts up ahead, their voices and the sound of electricity echoing around the walls. 

_They must be trying to diffuse the lion’s particle barrier_ , Krolia thought as she pulled out her knife. When the light of the lion’s shield glowed across the ground, she saw two Galra scouts standing there in front of the creature, setting up a machine to do just what she suspected. 

_Where’s the third one?_ She wondered, but didn’t dwell on it for much longer. 

Without another moment of hesitation, she sprinted towards them, throwing her knife as hard as she could and causing it to dig into the machine and cut off power to try and disable the barrier. 

One of the scouts looked back in alarm as their partner held up their gun and began to fire at her. She easily dodged each blast, sliding on the floor so she could kick the one nearest to her out of the way and slipped past to get to her knife. She tugged it out of the machine, snapped it upward to strike the gun away and the scout fell backwards. 

She twirled her knife in her hand, prepared to ask him questions when another scout appeared, pointing their gun at her and charging their shots. 

“Drop your weapon.” He ordered. 

Krolia glared at him, thinking of different ways she could go through this situation. One had her using the conscious scout as hostage, while the other was to get them to lower their guard so she could throw her knife at them. 

“I spotted her sneaking in. She was with a primitive who was setting explosives on our ships.” He held his gun up coldly, keeping Krolia in his sight and added onto his report to his comrades. “He’s been neutralized.”

Her heart froze at his words and she couldn’t imagine anything else but James’ limp corpse laying on the ground with the light in his eyes permanently extinguished. Her mind was becoming muddled and confused, unable to truly process what she had just heard. 

_“He’s been neutralized._ ” 

_James. James._ _No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!!_

 “No!” She turned all of her attention to this scout, her blood beginning to blaze under her skin.

No matter how hard she was trying to calm herself, her mind was already falling into a panic. James, he wasn’t, he couldn’t, this had to be a lie. Her eyes were beginning to sting, and she was trying so hard to not cry.  She heard about someone’s life flashing before their eyes, but she never knew that there was such thing as watching another’s life. In the span of a moment, all she could think about was all of the memories she shared with James. The years they had together, as well as their last moments. 

The last words he would ever tell her would be that they would both be fine because they had to get back to Keith. Why wasn’t she diligent enough to inspect their surroundings? If she had done that, then James might have…

“I said drop your weapon.” The scout’s voice cut through her thoughts, and she couldn’t focus on anything else but him. 

She knew that her losing her temper had been something she had worked on with the Blades, and she’s managed to reign that in for so long, but with the knowledge that her partner, that James was dead threw all of that out of balance. She was beyond vengeful, beyond angered, it was a cold fury that was coursing through her body and every fiber of her body was focused on ending these scouts. 

Krolia flipped her knife over, her fist trembling as she grasped the hilt so tightly she was certain they were cutting into her palm. More than anything else, she wanted to get rid of all of them, to take the life that they took from her. 

But she needed to be calmer than this for it to work. She forced herself to breathe and relax as she stood up with her arms up in surrender, her knife hanging loosely in her hand. She closed her eyes and made a show of dropping her knife. The scout lowered his gun.

That’s when she snapped her eyes open and ducked, avoiding the shots that were aimed at her and grabbed her knife midair. Krolia felt the hilt slip into her hand and she threw it at the scout’s gun, causing it to explode once it embedded itself into the barrel. 

She heard the other scout behind her rushing towards her, making her grunt as she dodged, wrapped her arms around his, throwing all of her weight forward as she slammed him to the ground with a sickening crunch, and she was certain she had at least broken a few bones. But once that adrenaline rush left her, she saw the one who had the gun dashing out of the cave to its entrance. She gave chase, but was too far behind, losing sight of him as he disappeared ahead of her. 

By the time she got out of the cave, his ship was already in flight and took off into the sky, leaving her on the ground with no alternative plan or solution. All she could do was stare hopelessly at the ship flying away into the night sky. Until it suddenly exploded in midair, causing a flash of bright light for a brief moment before dissipating into a cloud of trash. 

She watched in surprise and looked down in the quarry to see James holding up the detonator before collapsing on the ground. 

Her heart leapt up to her throat as she slid down the slope to get to him, hoping the falling shrapnel wouldn’t hit him. Even with her body tired from all of the adrenaline rushes she was giving herself, she was too elated to see James to really care about how much stress she was putting herself through. 

As she ran towards his body, she nearly tripped over herself as she slid to the ground and gently caressed his head, lifting him up. She immediately felt his pulse and sighed in relief when she felt a steady beat coming from it. She then attempted to wake James up, restraining herself from shaking him. 

“James?” She asked gently, and didn’t get so much as a groan in return. “James. _James_! Wake up! _Please wake up_! _Please_!” 

He grunted in pain and his eyes slowly opened to her relief. There was dirt and dust stuck to his face, but none of that mattered to her. She was just so glad to feel a pulse, to feel the warmth from his body, to feel him breathing, just knowing that he was alive. 

“….Krolia?”  
“I’m here,” she said, rubbing her thumb across his cheek with tears streaming down her face, making it hard to see his face clearly. Never in her life had she been so delighted to hear someone say her own name. “I’m here.”

He looked at her as if disoriented, like just woke up from a long night sleep, “Why’re you..?” 

“That scout said you were neutralized, I thought you were…” 

_I thought you were dead_. 

She shuddered at that thought and nuzzled her head closer to James so her forehead was against his.“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t attentive enough. This was all my fault. I put you in danger.”

She began to sob uncontrollably, the tears pouring down her chin as some landed on James’ stunned face. He winced as he tried to lift up his right arm but dropped it and instead awkwardly wiped away the tears he could catch with his left hand. 

“Hey, hey, this wasn’t your fault. You were focused on savin’ the Blue Lion, and I just happened to come out with a scratch.”

“James, don’t. Don’t play it off like this. How did you-?” She asked, trying not to choke on her words.

“Guess I just got lucky,” he said, but grunted at the pain. “Everythin’ kinda went dark, and when I came to, all I saw was the ship taking off and I knew I had to get to the detonator.”

She hugged him tightly, “You don’t need to say anything else. Just let me look after you now.”

She held her gauntlet up to him and he held as still as he could while she assessed how much damage he was under. The results she read left her feeling a little more at ease. 

“The shot missed everything vital, but it damaged your arm enough that you should still see a doctor for this,” she looked at him with worry when he nodded quietly. “Can you stand?”

He grunted as he lifted himself up with just his left arm, his right arm nestled in his lap. “Maybe?”

Krolia looked at the one of the ships that wasn’t detonated, running inside to find the first aid kit and coming out with a long bandage that she started to make a sling out of, gently putting his arm in it. Well, as gently as she could in that moment. Even though he could have cussed his tongue off, he kept as still as he could and gritted his teeth through the pain. Once that was done, he leaned his weight against her as she helped him up by holding his waist. 

“We’ll take a fighter to fly out of here. We can pick up the speeder later.” She said as they walked towards the ship. 

“What about those other Galras and the other fighter?” James grunted, making an effort to not have his right arm bump into anything. 

Krolia’s eyes turned bitter, “I’ll get to them next, I swear it.”

After gently guiding James into the ship, she grasped the controls and guided them upwards. Thankfully, everything was still familiar to her. As they landed near the cave’s entrance, James grimaced as he looked out from the pilot window. 

“What now?”

She turned off the engine and stood up from her seat. 

“I’m going to finish what I started. None of them are going to leave this cave.”

“I’ll come with you,” James said, trying to follow her. 

“No.” Krolia sternly said, her back to James. “This is something I should do alone. I don’t want you to hurt yourself more than you already are.”

“When I said we’d tackle our future problems together, I meant it. No matter what happens, I’m not gonna leave you.”

Krolia tried to bite her tongue. In another circumstance, she would have found those words admirable, or even comforting, but she didn’t want any of that now.  
“James, I’ve done plenty of horrible things for the sake of my people. While I’ve told you about my past, and the things I’ve done, I still would prefer you stay here.” She held her gaze down to the floor of the fighter, everything she said feeling too heavy for her to bear. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“I understand you had a dark past where you had to do things you weren’t proud of, but I promised you I’d stay by your side, and that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

He took a step towards her and she finally turned around. 

“ _Damnit! Why won’t you just listen to me this once, Jame_ s?!” Krolia yelled, her eyes beginning to water again. She shook her head despondently and turned back to the door.

“Please… I’ve, we’ve been through enough for one night. You can’t help everyone around you,” she almost didn’t notice her hand over on her knife, and she slowly let go. “If you must come, then fine. But don’t you dare try and stop me.”

She didn’t wait for his reply as she headed for the exit of the ship. Whether or not he followed her at this point didn’t matter to her. 

* * *

 

Back inside the cave at the foot of the lion, she nudged one of the scouts who seemed to be on the verge of consciousness with the tip of her shoe. When his eyes started to open, she shifted her knife until it was in its sword form, and she pointed the tip at his throat. 

“Tell me who your commander is, why you were sent here, and I’ll make sure your death will be painless.”

“Why should I tell anything to a-?” He coughed heavily and groaned, barely able to lift his head up from the ground. “To a traitor? You t-turned your back against the empire, scum.”

He spit out a glob of saliva and blood at her to punctuate “scum” that nearly landed at her feet, but it neither deterred her, nor disgusted her. 

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Krolia replied coldly, nudging the sword closer to his jugular. “Surrender now, and the pain will cease.”

“Never. I am loyal to the empire, only victory or death will ever stop me. Vrepit sa.”

Without hesitation, she poked at his ribs with her heel, causing him to roar in pain. His voice echoed throughout the cave, giving it an eery tone as the lion above them seemed to look on with indifference. 

“ _Surrender now, and the pain will cease_.” She repeated, not letting her blade stray far from her target. 

She never liked doing this, but just remembering that not too long ago, they were the ones who nearly killed James and herself crushed the sympathy she thought she should have. 

“Answer.”

“Krolia!” 

James’ voice followed, and she turned her head away to see James at the mouth of the cave, trying to support himself against the wall with his left hand while his other arm was in its sling. He looked a little more pale than she remembered seeing him last, and a part of her wondered if it was because he was witnessing things she’d rather not have him see. 

The scout below her sneered. 

“You lowered yourself, to having that primitive being help you-?”

There was a sickening crack as Krolia kicked the scouts’ face as hard as she could, anger clouding her judgement as she knelt down to press her blade even closer. He started hacking and coughing even more, droplets of blood sprayed onto the ground.

“If I hear another insult come out of your mouth, I’ll make sure you regret ever following your commanders orders and setting foot onto this planet.” Her voice was wavering with fury, and her usual demeanor of calm was long forgone. “Answer me, now. Who sent you?”

“L-Lord Vixla,” he paused to let out a weak cough, his chest heaving slowly. “But does it- does it matter now? We have the Red Lion’s quintessence signature, and then we eventually found the Blue Lion. S-Soon, we’ll find the rest, and this planet will meet its fate like all of the others. Nothing will b-be out of our grasp.”

“What do you mean all of the others?” James asked, trying to raise his voice, but wincing in pain. 

“Look upon this beast, primitive, it’ll be your downfall if you don’t give it to us now,” the scout said, turning his head to James with some painful effort. “Bow to us now, and we might spare your pathetic race and planet.”

“You’ve said enough,” Krolia warned, tempted to grab the scout’s throat and crush his windpipe. 

“Our Emperor Zarkon will find all of the lion’s of Voltron, and with the most powerful weapon in all of the universe in our grasp, we’ll have access to all of the quintessence in the universe!”

Krolia coldly placed her right foot over the scouts’ arm, while her left knee was grinding into the other. In the blink of an eye, she quickly drew her blade across the Galra’s throat, his eyes widening in shock before the panic and pain took over. Blood started to burst from his throat, his feet kicked around wildly and his arms attempted to stop the flow but couldn’t move them. He seemed to be trying to form some curse words towards Krolia, but nothing except weak gurgles came. 

“ _Vrepit sa.”_ Krolia said, stepping off of him and wiping the knife clean.

As she walked over to the other scout, she grabbed the energy pistol from the ground, lifted it up and took one shot. She allowed her arm to fall to her side limply as she stared down at the bodies. Now that it was all over, she could feel the fatigue from the entire trip getting to her. She looked back to find James’ eyes looking between the two corpses and then to Krolia. 

She couldn’t try to feel anything and allowed her body to move as if it were on autopilot. She went over to the first scout, scanning the data from his gauntlet and did the same with the other. 

“He could have had a painless death,” she muttered, wanting nothing more than to fall into James’ arms and feel comforted by his presence. 

“Krolia-”

For once, he seemed to be at a loss for what he should say. There wasn’t a comforting phrase dancing on the tip of his tongue, nor was he in the shape to provide something physically consoling. His partner seemed too lost in their thoughts to be able to get any of that. 

“I’m going to discard these bodies somewhere, and then seal the entrance to this cave.” Krolia said quietly, grabbing the two scouts by the scruff of their uniforms and dragging them away and towards the cave’s entrance. “There should be some kind of ravine nearby.”

“What?” James wasn’t sure if he heard her correctly. “But this is the only entrance we know of!”  
“There are certain to be more, this was just the one of the many we found.” She paused. “No… there’s more that I can do.”

“We. What we can do.” James interjected, feeling a cold sweat beading on his forehead as he tried to reach out to Krolia, but faltered. 

He should be holding her hand now, letting her know that they could do this together. Was that not enough now? Surely he could offer more than just that. But any other idea he thought of seemed cheap as she looked up to him, her eyes filling with sorrow. She glanced up at the Blue Lion, something they both marveled at in this past, now looked like the way he remembered her calling it the first time she explained the lions of Voltron to him. How that scout described them. 

Weapons.

  Now, the machines suddenly felt more sinister and dangerous than he even thought. Thankfully, Krolia seemed to feel his internal discomfort. 

“Please, just go back to the fighter. We’ll need to get you back home and patch you up.”

He couldn’t find it in himself to not obey, so he walked away, not able to handle the dead bodies, the lion, and this entire situation. As he sat quietly in the cockpit, his head spinning in what he was hoping was not due to the pain, Krolia opened the fighters doors, easily driving the speeder in and as she got off, he recognized the fearful expression on her face. 

He wasn’t sure exactly how he could tell since it seemed like her normal face, but he just knew. 

“What’s wrong?”

Krolia crossed her arms over her chest, and looked down at the ships floors. This was the most closed off she's been since she first crashed onto earth. He didn't know how to feel about that as she walked past him and started to work all of the controls. 

  "I don't want to talk right now."

  He watched as she started up the ship, felt the engine's roar to life as they were slowly lifted off the ground. Krolia then turned the ship towards the cave entrance they had become so accustomed to and fired a few shots at the ceiling of the cave. The rocks above it began to crumble, and the entrance was then sealed. James felt almost sad to see it go, not knowing when or how someone else would go and find the lion again. He glanced down to Krolia's seat, noticing her hands gripping the controls so tightly her knuckles were going white. He reached over, wincing a little as he placed a hand on her shoulder. 

  She looked up at him with tired eyes, glancing over at his sling. 

“Let's go home. You need to get your arm checked.”

  The engined thrummed to life as she drove them away, neither of them speaking throughout the whole trip. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in the final stretch.  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	18. Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The decision she dreaded ever having to make has arrived, and there is nothing she can do but accept it.

Driving back felt so ominous, and Krolia had to keep her focus on the controls of her ship, or else she’d start to think about James’ injured arm. But then they had to stop as she guided the speeder out of the hull and drove the rest of the way onto the familiar machine back to their home. While she would have worried about James not being able to hold on, they weren’t in a rush to stop Galra scouts from stealing the lion, so she was able to take it slow. 

When they parked outside their home, she helped him down and even made him lean on her for support despite his small promises of otherwise. Once inside, everything seemed too quiet, and she could still feel her nerves being on edge, trying to scope out possible assailants that could have infiltrated their home. A place where they were supposed to feel safe and secure made Krolia’s anxiety just spike when she thought of this place being destroyed under a Galra siege.

James groaned as hefound a chair and sat down in it while Krolia went to get some ice, wrapping it in some towels and gently pressing the cool cloth over James’ arm. more bandages. When she came back, she took off James’ vest with some difficulty and started to carefully wrap his arm up, going through great pains to not prod him too much. It stung her every time she saw the burn and cuts going up his arm. 

“How are you feeling? Does it still hurt?” She asked, letting her mind wander with the wrapping motion. It was distracting enough and it eased the tension in her body. 

“Honestly, I’m feeling great. I’ve had worse,” James muttered, grunting slightly which caused Krolia to look up at him to see if she had hurt him. “I’m fine, just flexin’ this arm a bit to see how it is.”

Krolia looked down at his fingers slightly curling over the armrest. Now didn’t feel like a good moment to try and call him out for his lying. 

“You still need to go to a hospital for this. I can only provide you with so much care.”

She wasn’t as adept with first aid, but luckily, wounds like these weren’t too hard for her to take care of. She only wished she could get James to closer emergency care, and then she’d feel less restless. 

James suddenly laughed, which only served to confuse her. 

“Why are you laughing? Did you hit your head as well?” Krolia already felt guilty enough that she got him shot, but if he had a concussion as well…

“No, no, I just think it’s funny, that’s all.” He looked out towards the window, remembering when he saw a smoking wreckage outside of his house, and his only thoughts were to get as fast as he could to the pilot to help them. "I used tobe the one who would take care of you, now here we are.” 

The more he smiled, the less relieved she felt. It felt wrong that he was so care free when this was all her idea. That everything that had happened up to this point was because of the mistakes she made. She would never be able to stop blaming herself no matter how many times he reassured her that she did nothing wrong, and that she stuck to her mission like she was trained to do. 

“We’re here because of my negligence, and that could have gotten you killed,” she spat at herself and felt her fingers glide delicately over his skin. 

“I know, but I don’t want to see you keep beatin’ yourself over the head about the past. Sometimes things happen that are just out of our control,” he said and looked up at her with eyes she couldn’t identify as caring or tired. “And I don’t wanna leave you here alone with your thoughts right now.”  
“That’s… thoughtful of you,” Krolia muttered, moving his shirt up as she wound the bandages across his chest, trying not to think about how close that shot came to killing her partner. “But my thoughts aren’t currently bothering me as of now.”

“Krolia,” he raised his hand to brush away the bangs in front of her face. “Please, talk to me.”

“Let me focus on this right now,” she said, taking her knife to cut off the bandage and started to tie it up. “I need to make sure it’s on tight and I can put your arm back into its sling.”

“Okay,” James looked down at his now wrapped arm, looking concerned. 

What seemed like hours finally came to an end after she inspected her work closer to make sure everything was in place before she put his casted arm back into her makeshift sling. 

“This will do for now,” Krolia reported as she picked up the first aid kit and walked towards the hallway cupboard to put it away. 

“Do you think they’ll send more scouts to look for the lion?” 

The question nearly caused her to drop the box, but she managed to keep it steady in her hands. However, this was something she desperately didn’t want to have spoken aloud. 

“They most certainly will, and that’s what I’m afraid of.”

She let her words hang in the air. The fear they brought was making her queasy the more she thought about it. 

“Then we’ll be ready for the next time it happens,” James said with a tone of confidence. 

“James, that’s now how this works,” Krolia answered bitterly, feeling her nails dig into the plastic box. She wasn’t sure if those loud squeaking sounds were coming from James’ chair or her nails scratching the container. 

“We stopped them once, we can stop them again. We know where they’ll go-”

Krolia snapped, slamming the lid of the first aid kit down hard and angrily turning to face James. 

This wasn’t how it worked. This wasn’t how they were going to continue on living their lives. It doesn’t work that way. It. Just. Doesn’t. Work.

“We got lucky this time! What happens if they send _more_ scouts? What if they bring _more_ troops? _More ships_? You do realize how ill-equipped we are at defending just ourselves?”

“We’ll figure somethin’-!” James tried to interject, but Krolia momentarily beat him out in volume. 

“You nearly died tonight, and that was only with three other Galra scouts! What are our odds against a small team?! A militia?! _How am I supposed to protect you then_?!”

Krolia screamed, feeling her eyes burn once again and her throat constrict dangerously. A mixture of euphoria and fear washing into her veins as she let out all of her frustrations.

“I don’t know! The Garrison is out of the question, so we just have to work with what he got! Maybe next time I’ll do my best in aidin’ you?! _We’ll work through it! We’ll find a solution!”_ James rarely raised his voice, yet it didn’t make her back down. 

“I remember thinking I’d lost you that one time in the cave when I thought you’d drowned, and my heart stopped! _When that scout said you’d been neutralized, it felt like I had stopped breathing, like I had died right there once those words were spoken!_ ” She couldn’t breathe properly, she couldn’t see properly, and at this point, she felt she couldn’t even _think_ properly. “ _If there’s something in this world I’m afraid of more than anything, it’s the thought of ever losing you, or you getting killed because of me! I nearly lost you back there, and I can’t go through all of that again_!!” 

They both immediately fell silent as she tried to reign in the tears and catch her breath. It wouldn’t do her much good to continue yelling like this if she wanted to explain their situation as collectively as she could. 

“I won’t- I can’t go through something like that again. I never want to think of ever losing you like that.”

She began to hiccup, her voice failing her as she tried to keep herself angry, but the exhaustion was slowly gnawing away at any chance of her containing that fire to continue the conversation.

She was so tired, and wanted nothing more than to believe this was a nightmare. Soon, she’d wake up to see her wonderful partner’s face assuring her that she was just having a bad dream and how he’d kiss away the tears at the corner of her eyes until she snuggled back up into his arms. Or she’d hold Keith and believe that as long as she was hugging him, nothing in this universe could ever tarnish the life she loved. 

But it was real, everything that had happened was real, and there was almost nothing she could do to stop or forget it. 

“I-I can’t stop thinking about you d-dying out there. How close I was to n-never being able to hold you again. To having to think that you’d…”

_That you’d leave me._

She trailed off, unable to think of any more words to describe this visceral fear inside of her. If she spoke any more, she was sure she was going to vomit. 

What James did next frustrated her to no ends. He got up and hugged her.

“I’m sorry. I know that doing everything by ourselves is futile. But it’s just, I don’t know what else to do,” she heard sniffling coming from him as his shoulders were trembling slightly. “I thought that, if I just believed we could handle it, I’d be able to give myself some peace of mind.”

She hesitated as she pulled away from the hug enough so she could see her partner’s face. A few years seemed to have added onto him since the last time she looked up at him. Or maybe it was just him accepting this horrible new outcome that he wanted to avoid just as much as she did. 

“Why aren’t you angry at me? After all the yelling I did?” The question Krolia wanted the most answered.  
“Well, you should know by now that it’ll take more than yelling to get me really be angry at you,” James answered in his usual nonchalance, but even he seemed to be surrendering to his tiredness. “I just don’t know how to handle something like this happening unless I can make someone else feel safe.”

“It’s always been a horrible trait of yours,” Krolia admitted, brushing her thumb under his eye. “You never want to show others your problems, so you try to smile through it all and take care of everyone else’s worries.”

“I don’t- not all the time,” James stuttered. 

“Yes, you do. Like how you always want to look after Keith so I wouldn’t worry about hurting him.”

Both of their eyes shot open as they rushed up the staircase, and when they looked into their room, their son lay in his crib, still fast asleep. She wasn’t sure why she was so relieved to find him there, it wasn’t like he could walk just yet. 

“I can’t believe I almost forgot about our child…”

“We were under a lot of stress earlier, don’t blame yourself for forgetting. Besides, he’s as safe as a baby can be in this situation. I’d hope.”

She suddenly got a horrible feeling in her gut as she watched James try to maneuver himself with his arm in the makeshift cast. He certainly had to be more careful with himself, and his uninjured arm was weakly brushing back Keith’s hair as he slept. 

“I’m surprised he can sleep through all that,” James sighed as he leaned over the crib. 

“Especially after all the yelling we did,” Krolia added. 

She looked back at her child and then pulled out her knife, staring at the insignia that had glowed not too long ago. Something inside her was urging her to throw it away, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. 

“Krolia?”  
Her gaze went from her knife to James’ face.

“What?”

“I was askin’ if you wanted to get some rest. We went through hell tonight, and you must be exhausted.”  
“…No. I’m going to wait and see if Keith will wake up, he might need a change of diapers or more milk. You should sleep.” 

James looked like he wanted to make an argue, but he just hung his head and walked over to the bed. Krolia quickly followed him, pulled the blankets aside so he could easily slip under the sheets and propped the pillow up so he could sleep. 

“Comfortable?” 

She watched him pull up the blanket towards him, resting his unharmed hand across his lap. 

“Yeah,” he sighed, finally looking like he was letting his body relax after all that had occurred. 

Krolia sat on the side of the bed, leaned over and gently held Jame’s hand. 

“I need some time alone to think, but I promise you we’ll talk more about what we can do next in the morning.”

James smiled, lifting up Krolia’s hand and kissing her knuckles before easing backwards onto the pillow and closing his eyes. She waited sitting beside him, running her thumb gently over James’ hand before sighing and leaning forward, clasping her hands in front of her mouth. She already knew what she had to do, but having to tell James exactly why wasn’t going to be easy. There was only one option she knew she had to take, and knowing what that option was made her body feel weightless in the worst possible way. 

This was the thing she feared she’d have to do if the Galra ever showed up, and the home life that she had adopted didn’t make make the decision any easier to come to. A part of her knew it was always bound to happen. 

She wanted to crawl into bed next to James and rest, yet she felt too wired to even be able to think of anything else but her next plan of action. Still, she needed this, so she did just that, peeling off parts of her armor, and falling into the bend in an uncomfortable slumber. She could feel all of her tense muscles relax until they felt like she had just finished hours of non-stop training. 

Sleep didn’t come easy, and when she finally had it in her grasp, it only felt like minutes until she woke up to Keith whining loudly. 

Krolia left what little comfort she got from her rest and walked over to lift up her son from his crib. Too tired to go down to the kitchen and heat up his milk at the moment, she started making white noise to calm him down as she rocked him back and forth in her arms. Once his crying resided, he opened his eyes and looked up at her, giggling happily and extended his hands out while making grabbing motions. She sat back down on the bed, bringing her face close to her son’s as he put his hands on her cheeks. 

The sight of him smiling did some wonders in helping her feel at peace, but the longer she looked at his face, the more the dread in her increased. She began stroking Keith’s hand with her thumb, pressing her forehead to his and beginning to feel tears form at the corner of her eyes. 

Soon she was crying as she rocked Keith back and forth, her tears burning her skin as it trailed down her chin and some fell onto Keith. Krolia held her son tighter and closer to her chest, as if she feared that her child would disappear from her arms if she didn’t hold him close enough. She didn’t want to lose this. She didn’t want to let any of this go. 

But the Blades had always told them that they all had sacrifices to make, sometimes, ones that require absolutely everything from their members. Now, this was a sacrifice she was going to have to make if it was going to be the turning point of this endless war. 

* * *

 

James woke up to Krolia cradling Keith in her arms.

Normally, she would have a huge smile on her face, but now, it looked more like melancholy. Also a bit out of the ordinary was the fact that she was still wearing her armor from the night before. He wanted to reach out his hand and touch her, but he held it back. 

Krolia had told him she would talk about their next plan of action in the morning, but he got the feeling that whatever she had planned wasn’t going to be something either of them would be able to agree on. It also worried him that she looked like she had been crying for a while, her eyes slightly red and puffy. 

James thought about going back to sleep, but when he moved, he winced at the pain in his arm. Krolia looks over to her partner, and Keith who seemed to almost have been lulled to sleep followed her gaze and babbled happily when he realized James was awake. 

“Mornin’ you two.”

“Good morning.”

“Bah-begh!”

Keith attempted to squirm out of Krolia’s arms, but she easily held him back. 

“I don’t want to stress your arm out, and I’m worried that Keith might accidentally break it if he gets too close.”

“Good call,” James said, managing to lean forward towards his family and held out his left index finger for Keith to grab. He happily took it and began to attempt to gnaw on it. 

“What time is it right now?” Krolia asked, her voiced sounded a bit scratched. 

James looked over at the small alarm clock, “‘Bout seven in the mornin’.”

“Oh, I see…” 

Krolia looked down at Keith, but it didn’t seem like she was even focusing on her son’s face, more like she was staring off into space. 

“How long have you been up?”

James easily ignored the line of drool connecting the tip of his finger to his son’s mouth as he started babbling some more and looked eager to play. Krolia looked more like the first few weeks when they had Keith, protective and paranoid, as if worried that someone could come in and try to hurt Keith. 

“I don’t know. I just remember sleeping for a little while, then I heard Keith cry so I took care of him, and then… I don’t know. I must have gotten lost in my thoughts for a bit.”

_Seems like a little longer than “a bit”,_ James thought as Krolia seemed to be trying to blink her tiredness away. 

“Is this about whatever plan you were concutin’ last night?”

She looked more drained when he brought up that question. He definitely hit a nerve there. 

“Krolia.”

She averted her eyes from James, he thought she was just trying to avoid answering him, but her posture made her look like she was trying to shrink in on herself. Like she was ashamed of what she was about to say. She quietly stood up, carrying Keith back to his crib and gently placed him down, her back still to her partner. 

“If there’s a chance for us to stop this war, I’d have to get the information I’ve gathered to the Blade of Marmora as soon as I can.”

“So, we’ll just work on a machine to make that happen? How are we gonna do that?”

“We won’t be doing anything,” Krolia said and started to grip the wooden grip tightly. “This is something I must do by myself.”

“Krolia, what are you talkin’ about?”

She looked over her shoulder to James, her eyes filled with pain and regret. 

“I _have_ to leave earth.”

James sat silently as he stared at Krolia, wishing that this was all just some kind of joke. Unfortunately, his partner was never really the one to joke about things like these. 

“I ran through all of the possibilities in my head. Everything I thought of only drove me back to the one solution I couldn’t avoid.”

James was silent, his eyes downcast and it took him a full minute to respond. 

“…You’re serious, about leavin’?”

“Yes. We both know it was an inevitable outcome.”

The words felt harsh, but she needed James to know that no matter what he’d try to do, her mind was made up. As much as it hurt her to say it, there was just no avoiding this anymore. Wherever the lions were, violence from the Empire wouldn’t be too far from it. 

The long silence between them was becoming too stifling, and she began to wish that Jame would just yell or get angry at her. She deserved getting that kind of reaction out of him if he felt that way. Instead, he sighed as he looked towards their closet. 

“When are you plannin’ on leaving?” His voice was quiet and exhausted. 

“I don’t know. I still need to collect all of the data we found over the years, pack some supplies, and then I’ll be off. However, I don’t know how long that will take.”

He simply nodded and stood up with some difficulty.

“Then I’ll go get breakfast started. You can’t go out and save the universe on an empty stomach.”

Krolia watched as her partner left the room, but there was no mirth or jovial smirk on his face that he would usually have. He looked burnt-out, and knowing that made her feel a little more guilty. She looked back into the crib to find Keith staring up at her, not knowing what was going on around him, or the strife that was beginning to eat away at Krolia’s heart. She leaned into the crib, picked up her son and pushed away a strand of hair from his forehead. 

When Keith placed one of his small hands on her cheek, she faltered and looked at him. He started to pull at her lips, and deep down she wondered if he would ever remember what she looked like. She forced herself to smile, one of the most daunting tasks she felt that she put herself through in that day and hugged Keith tightly. 

“Let’s go down and eat, starlight.”

* * *

She didn’t think much, and only when the afternoon sun was beginning to set did she realize how much time had passed. She was staring out their bedroom window, trying not to think of what her next steps were as she glanced over to see James tucking Keith in. Just an hour ago, Keith was wide awake and playing with him, now he was as quiet as a Meerlaxa mouse. 

As much as she wanted to think that the day went on as it normally would have in their home, the air around them had certainly changed. It was the kind of atmosphere she remembered feeling when being sent out on a mission with other Blade agents. Taking every precaution they can to make sure nothing goes wrong on their mission, but being aware that there’s a chance not everyone would make it back alive. 

She allowed her vision to go from outside the window with the desert turning into a pleasant auburn color she had grown fond of, to her partner and child being put into his crib. She and James hadn’t spoken to each other for a while, whenever they tried, they couldn’t find the words and continued on with their activities. The time she couldn’t spend with Keith, left her to packing supplies and making sure all of the data she downloaded was correct. Now, all that was left was one last thing. 

They wanted to avoid this moment. They both knew this was going to be their final goodbye. She might as well break the ice first.

“I must go.”

She hoped she sounded stoic, but it hurt her so much to have to say it. Her partner looked down at Keith, making sure the blanket covered his son properly. 

James was glad his hand was resting on the crib. Everything around him felt like it was slowly coming down onto his shoulders, and the one thing keeping him grounded was Krolia and his son’s presence. The selfish part of him had been at war with itself throughout the day, wanting to beg Krolia to stay and telling her that they could still figure something else out. Yet as much as he wanted nothing more than to keep his family together, the realist in his head knew that there was no other way through this.

And what she said the other night was right. The only thing they really had was data on the Blue lion, after that, they were defenseless. He had nearly died trying to protect the people he cared for, and that was only with four scouts. He shuddered to think what the Empire’s army was capable of the more he thought about how different human technology was to theirs. 

He exhaled slowly as he closed his eyes, trying desperately not to break down.He had to keep himself from not pleading for Krolia to change her mind. 

“I thought you’d seen enough war.”

_If I could, I’d want to keep you away from it forever._

Krolia could just tell what James was thinking. She knew they both wanted to just live the tranquil life they built together in this house in the middle of the desert. It would have been the life she’d gladly take if not for the circumstances. The Blue Lion remained hidden on Earth, and sooner of later, the Empire would find it and stop at nothing to take it from this planet with force as was the Empire’s way. 

“If they found the Blue Lion once, they’ll find it again. I need to report back to the Blades and stop the Galra from the inside.”

James made no comment and she walked up to him, gently placing her hand above his to comfort him. He still refused to make eye contact, and she worried at how badly he was taking everything but wouldn’t show her.

“I’m sorry. But this is the best way for me to keep you both safe.”

What other words could she say to give him peace of mind? James still said nothing as she leaned over Keith’s crib, looking at her sleeping child’s face, wondering what pleasant dreams he might be having. She dipped her head all the way down so she could place a small kiss on Keith’s cheek, hoping she wouldn’t wake him up. If he started crying now, she wasn’t sure if she could go through with this. After she straightened herself out, she closed her eyes as she reached for the knife behind her back, and held it out for James. 

“This is for Keith.” She looked down at her knife one last time, knowing that if she couldn’t be around to protect her son, this would be the next best thing.“He may need it someday.”

James remained silent, but gave her a knowing look as he took the blade from her hands, and staring down at his reflection in the metal. They both knew how important the knife was to her, so the fact that she was leaving it here…

“I’ll… be downstairs, getting everything else ready.”

Krolia said as she made to leave the room. She stopped at the doorway and turned back to look at her partner. 

“James?”

“I’ll be down there in a bit, just… give me a minute.”

She nodded and he heard her steps fade downstairs. He looked at the knife and to Keith, wondering how he would explain this to his human son once he was old enough to learn about his heritage. That was the second biggest thing in his life he definitely wasn’t looking forward to. Saying his good-bye’s to Krolia…

He placed the knife onto the dresser, thinking about making a sheath for it later and remembering the first time he ever picked that blade up, thinking it was nothing more than a creepy weapon. Now, it was so much more than that. He walked over to their bed and sat down, running his free hand over his face, biting the inside of his lip to avoid crying in frustration. This was Krolia’s choice, and he was going to support whatever she needed to do. 

Yet, he still didn’t want her to go through with it. He wanted her to stay. He wanted to be by her side through thick and thin. His shoulders shuddered as he held back his tears and tried to steady his breath. After calming down, he stood up, looked over to Keith and gave a weak smile. This was for their son, and that was all he needed to accept. 

He ventured downstairs to see Krolia staring at the walls of their home, tracing her hands over the shelf full of books and records she had read and listened to over the years. He watched her handle one book in particular before placing it back on the shelf and turned to see James at the bottom of the staircase. 

“Just… reminiscing. So much happened here.” She took a moment to smile, “I still can’t believe how barren these walls are.”

_I would have filled all of them with photos of us._ James thought to himself wistfully, but left Krolia to her musings. He knew why that wasn’t made into a reality. 

“A lot has happened since then,” he said, causing her smile to widen somewhat. 

She walked off to a backpack placed on the dining table that they had used on their trips to the Blue lion, getting ready to fill it up with supplies. James walked up to her as she looked for a container to hold her water, holding out a stack of granola bars for her. 

“I want to help.”

Krolia looked up and smiled at this gesture. 

“I’d like that.”

 

“D’you need anything else?” James watched as Krolia tightened the back pack, now filled with food, water, and anything else she needed for her journey back up into space. “You don’t need the speeder, or anything?”

“I parked the ship not too far from here. Once I get to it, I need to set the coordinates to the nearest Blade base so I can let them know all that I’ve found.”

“But you’re in a hurry, aren’t you?” He gave her a warm smile. “Just take the speeder. I can pick it up tomorrow.”

“If you insist.” Krolia hefted the backpack over her shoulder, adjusted the straps accordingly and looked at her gauntlet one last time. “I should go.”

James nodded as she went to the front door, grabbing the doorknob and hesitating for a moment. Once she went through this door, there was definitely no going back for her. She wouldn’t be able to return to this life, but she’d be able to protect it. 

She barely noticed how dark out it had gotten, and she felt a gentle breeze brush her skin. Krolia closed her eyes to try and commit this feeling to memory, to make sure she would never forget the smell of the air, the way the sky changed color throughout the day, and exactly where her home stood. 

Krolia could hear James approaching, and she decided that a moment of spontaneity was worth a few more ticks beside James. 

“Krolia? Everythin’ alright?”

She turned around, walked up to James, leaned up and planted a kiss to his lips. Her palm gently caressed his cheek and the other had placed itself on his left shoulder to help pull her up more. She did her best to avoid him straining his injured arm as much as she could. James seemed surprised by this, but quickly returned the gesture, kissing her back, and trying to pull her in closer with his free arm. 

Once Krolia forced herself to part from James, she could still feel his breath on hers as she cupped his face with both hands and stared into his eyes. The color reminded her so much of Keith. How she’d miss seeing those and did her best to commit it deep into her memory. 

“Take care of yourself, and Keith,” she said quietly, unable to bring herself to talk in her normal tone. “You two are my entire world.”

James leaned down to kiss her again, and she didn’t try to stop him. She was scared, and craved what little comfort she’d be able to get her hands before it became a rare thing to desire. James moved away to give them both air to breathe, and laid his forehead against hers. 

“I love you,” James said, holding her as tightly as he could with only one arm. 

“I love you too,” she said, trying not to press her body too closely to James, lest she hurt his arm, but compromised with putting her arms around his neck and trying to ingrain each part of him to memory. 

She didn’t want to leave her family, and a part of her argued that she could stay. She could still be with her family. She still had that decision to make. But that wasn’t the path she wanted to take. Krolia nestled her head against James’ throat, and resting her hand against his chest, feeling his heart beating against it. Just for a moment longer, she wanted to be selfish and hold onto someone she loved before knowing the inevitable conclusion was arriving. 

Krolia tried to hold back the tears as she gently pushed her hands against James’ chest and he easily stepped back, lifting up his hand to move his thumb across the marks on her cheek. 

“Be safe.”

She smiled and allowed herself one last moment of respite as she rubbed her cheek against calloused palm, lifting up her own hand to hold his steady. If she tried to reply, she was afraid the tears wouldn’t stop falling. Then, she had to let it all go. She turned and walked towards the speeder, feeling James’ hand still on her and then slowly slipped away. 

After getting onto the speeder, she felt around the controls that came naturally to her, and as she felt the familiar engine thrum to life, she looked down towards James, sending her off with a smile. She felt her eyes water as she tried to smile as well before turning the handle and speeding off towards her ship, doing her best not to look back at the home she now had to leave behind. 

* * *

 

Being back inside a Galra cruiser leading her back to the Blades and eventually the Empire felt oddly nostalgic. As she checked for the thrusters and made sure the engines were in shape, all that was left was the take off. She focused on the sky above her as she prepared for launch. 

The cruiser shuddered as the engine began to heat up, and she thought of James. Screens began to pop up around her, and she thought of Keith. She grabbed onto the controls and thought of her home next to the shack where she and James used to spend hours in tracking down the Blue Lion’s location. Finally as the engine diagnostics came in, she thought of holding her family close to her and how much she wished she could have had more time with them. 

Then, it was takeoff, gravity pushing her against her seat as she traveled upwards, but none of that bothered her. The colors around her rushed passed as she entered the atmosphere and soon, she was greeted by stars and the darkness of space. Her ship stabilized itself and she let out a small sigh in her helmet. Krolia closed her eyes for a moment as she collected her thoughts, and turned her head around as she caught a glimpse of earth, a sight she hadn’t gotten the chance to see since she first crashed. 

She let go of the handles of her ship as she wrapped her arms around herself, and finally let out the despair she felt at leaving. She needed these feelings out, or else she wouldn’t be able to focus on her mission. Once she felt that she was in control again, she grasped the controls once more and urged her ship forward. 

She wasn’t leaving because of her mission, but it was to protect those she loved. If anything else, that was all the incentive she needed to push forward and hope for a brighter future. 

After what felt like hours flying, she pulled up a screen and entered a frequency she hoped one of her fellow Blade members could hear. Then, she waited, and listened. It took a while, but once she heard a signal back, she couldn’t help but grin ear to ear. 

* * *

 

Back at one of the Blade’s many hideouts, she couldn’t help but smile at the look on Kolivan’s face. While it seemed nigh impossible for his expression to change from anything beyond mild irritation, she could tell when he was surprised. Perhaps he was trying to contain all of the other emotions inside since there were other Blade members around them, possibly wondering how she had survived for so long. 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She joked, looking up at her leader. 

“We thought you’d been compromised,” Kolivan replied, clearly not believing in what he was seeing. “The last message you sent me… it barely got through to any of us.”

Krolia relaxed herself, and got straight to business as she held up her gauntlet and started inputting the information she needed. 

“I have a new message for you, one that was of the utmost importance.” 

She pressed through each screen and pulled up a screen of coordinates. 

“The planet I crashed on held something that I thought none of us would ever see again in our lifetime, but Zarkon’s scouts proved to have been correct in tracking down similar quintessence readings of the Red Lion.” She pulled up another screen to show a picture of the Blue Lion, sitting as proud as ever behind its particle barrier. “On this planet called earth, I managed to find the Blue Lion hidden deep inside some caverns. A few scouts were sent down to search for it, and I managed to interrogate and eliminate them before they could send word back to the Empire. With this new information in hand, we now know where we need to keep Zarkon’s troops from searching.”

“You found all of this in the time you were missing?” Kolivan questioned. 

“Yes, and we need to spread out our own members now more than ever if we are to keep another lion of Voltron out of Zarkon’s hands.” Krolia pulled out a data chip from her gauntlet and handed it to Kolivan who took it into his hand. “Maybe when the time is right, we’ll send someone down to retrieve the Blue Lion. Until then, the lion must remain hidden.”

“Understood, I’ll have the data stored and send out troops to find places where they can halt further search of the lions,” the Marmoran leader looked down at Krolia and showed her a rare smile. “First, I would suggest you should get some rest, you must be exhausted from your flight.”

“No, I’ll go help the others with the data and catch up on what I’ve missed,” she gave a small respectful nod of her head to Kolivan as she turned to follow one Blade out of the room. 

“What happened to your luxite blade?” 

She halted in her tracks. Krolia knew how to keep composed, but she wondered how well her lying to Kolivan still was. It was easy enough to lie to a Galra general, but Kolivan seemed to have a innate ability in noticing a lie. 

“I’m afraid I lost it,” she answered, hoping her voice didn’t waver. 

“You realize that we cannot supply you with another blade?”

She knew that. She knew all of that far before she decided to relinquish her blade to her son, and she did not regret it. As long as she knew a part of her was on earth to protect Keith, she wouldn’t care what consequences befell her for that decision. If he had more questions about how she survived for so long, she would just omit parts of the truth that he didn't need to know. She inhaled and looked at Kolivan, speaking with all of the confidence she could muster from her tired state. 

“What matters was that I succeeded in the mission, and now, we must move forward to ensure that this war will end soon.”

If her leader was sensing that she was lying to him, she couldn’t clearly tell, but he seemed to accept her answer. 

“… Very well. Do what you must, and if you need anything else, be sure to call for me.”

“I will,” Krolia said and continued on her previous path, following a Blade member towards the data base to catch up on the Emipre’s current movements. 

As she entered a large room filled with rows of glowing slates, the Blade member briefly informed her of the days’ tasks, as well as current whereabouts of Galra warlords and something about Zarkon finding new ways to harvest quintessence. She thanked them for the information as she set to work on pulling up whatever data file she could and trying to figure out how they should plan their next moves. 

She wasn’t just doing this for the universe, but also for her family, and she would do anything to ensure that the Galra would never be able to lay waste to the things she loved no matter how long it would take to put it to an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is by far the longest chapter I've written for this fic. Seeing how it's the last chapter before the epilogue, I felt you guys deserve it.  
> So sorry for the late update, college was being a b*tch and I just haven't been able to have the energy to write this chapter (or constantly putting it off). Thank you all for being so patient!  
> Double update coming right up!  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


	19. Epilouge~ I Left you Once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It should have been such an easy mission. But nothing seemed to want to work wit her, and as fate would have it, the past wasn't done with her yet.

_Dammit, this wasn’t what should be happening!  
_   Krolia thought as she stared at the red holo-screen that showed the super-weapons current vital status and looked over to how their defenses were doing against the fire raising from above them. 

  She wished she had the energy to curse Zarkon beyond his grave. Now she had more than she could handle on her plate after his sudden death at the hands of his own son, no less. Now the empire was in shambles, and every other Galra commander seemed to be going after everyone's throats after the Kral Zera quiet frankly went down in flames. 

Not only had Ranveig gone off to the Kral Zera in hopes of being deigned the new Galra emperor, but now that the secret of their super weapon was out, and prince Lotor apparently was now sitting on the throne, she had to worry about Ladnoq and Trugg attacking her base in hopes of taking it for themselves. Although she hoped that they would end up destroying each others fleets first before they even came close, but based off of information she received from the Blades, Trugg’s fleet easily outclassed Ladnoq’s. So while she wouldn’t have to deal with both feral warlords, it was still going to be a problem for her if either of them arrived for the weapon. 

Ranveig’s base wasn’t particularly strong on its defenses, and when last she notified Kolivan of this, he assured her that he would send for a Blade operative to come extract her if things got too out of hand or she was found out. So far, dying by a Galra fleet should have been one of the other options available. She hadn’t been in contact with the Blades much since she was stationed here, and the bits of information she did receive was either rumors, or heard it through other Galra generals reporting in to Ranveig. 

She hated how she didn’t have more time to research the quintessence that Ranveig had retrieved, but knew that it was enough for them to be concerned about its place of origins. She had never seen the kind of power or change this kind of quintessence could bring, and the moment Ranveig decided to create a super weapon from it, she knew she had to kill it before it became too bloodthirsty for them to control. It was something she wasn’t able to keep Kolivan updated on, but she would see to it that no one would be able to use it. 

As she followed a few sentries to check up on their supplies while the alarms roared in the air, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle and she turned around to see a flash of a Blade uniform duck too slow behind a wall. Nearly half a tick later, she could see them peeking out again, a bit more cautious, but still visible to her. 

She wasn’t impressed to say the least. 

_… Are we so short-handed that you had to send an amateur to extract me, Kolivan?_ Krolia thought sarcastically as she pretended not to notice them and continued her path down the hall. She could scold them once she was sure they were out of sight from the sentries and other guards patrolling the area. 

However, as she rounded the corner, she stopped and waited for them to show themselves. She couldn’t be too careful about this person. Amateur or not, she still had a facade to hold up until she knew they were both safe. When she heard their footsteps approach and paused to look around, she quietly took out her gun, snuck up behind them and pointed her pistol at their head with it beginning to charge, just as they pulled out their sword. It shifted from its knife form to a blade just aimed at the side of her neck. 

They stared each other down, trying to asses the situation. At least this member knew how to use their blade properly, it was just stealth they were poor at. 

“… Krolia?” The Blade asked. 

_Do I know this one?_ Krolia thought and looked down at their Blade to see if she had trained them be-

Her heart almost stopped as her eyes widened in surprise. 

No. How was this possible? None of this should be real.

Never. In any reality or time did she ever think she would see this blade again. The same blade she had “lost” nearly twenty decaphobes ago, has now returned into her life. That could only mean…

Krolia looked over at the Blades’ mask, wondering what kind of face she would see once it was down. What kind of person would she find beneath? 

What would her own son look like?

She lowered her gun and he did the same. There were so many questions currently running around in her head, but now wasn’t the time nor place. Once they were in a safe location, then she’d grill him on the rest. 

“You’re late. We don’t have much time.”

* * *

 

After dodging past all of the guards and sentries, Krolia snuck them inside the control room and made way for the panels, trying to check on their defenses. While the rugged terrain would slow down any land attacks, strikes from the air wasn’t something Ranveig really counted on. As she rapidly searched through lines of data and making sure she had the code for the super weapon down she felt safe enough to ask Keith a few questions. 

“Why did Kolivan risk sending you here now?” 

_Better yet, I should ask him why he chose_ **_you_ ** _specifically._

Keith turned off his mask, his voice coming to her ears more clearly. 

“Because he’s heard about Ranveig’s superweapon. We can’t let it fall into the wrong hands.”

_He’s come up with better excuses than that._

_“_ I guess Ranveig’s dead since Commander Trugg is attacking my base.” Krolia noted with a bit of sarcasm. Of course that loud fool would be stupid enough to get himself killed at the Kral Zera, she wasn’t surprised at that.

She wondered if Keith was thinking about how she could be so calm when there were air strikes and explosions happening just outside her base. Like she wasn’t concerned that her base of operations could be under siege at any moment. 

“Trugg is on the edge of crushing your forces. We have to destroy the super weapon now.” He sounded a little panicked, but she was impressed that he was keeping himself together, given the circumstances. “What is the weapon exactly?”

Krolia could only think of the twisted deformed skin, gaping mouth dripping with saliva at the thought of its next prey, and deformed body whenever the weapon came to mind. She had become numb to feeling anything beyond pity for the creature, wondering how things would have been had she not happened upon that ship full of quintessence. 

“Warlord Ranveig intercepted an undocumented shipment of quintessence traveling through his territory. He took it for his own and began experimenting with it.” 

After she turned to Keith, she took a moment to gaze at his face. Her heart nearly broke when she realized how he had some of James’ features. 

“It’s more powerful than any quintessence we’ve received from the empire, and it has some very unexpected effects.”

She hoped Keith wouldn’t ask for more details, but she didn’t have to as her entire base shook causing both of them to grunt in surprise. She looked up to see the room blinking red and a voice over the intercom began to yell. 

“ _First level breached! Activating second level of defense!”_  
“Trugg’s fleet has touched down. We’re running out of time! Come on!”

She rushed towards the elevator with Keith tailing right behind her. The two of them got inside as the doors closed, leading them down to where the super weapon was held. Now they just had to get rid of the creature. 

  
After the doors opened, Krolia made a beeline towards the console on the right while Keith ran to the one opposite of hers. 

“Get to the console!”

He looked down at the keyboard and looked back up to Krolia.  
“What now?”  
“We need to simultaneously enter this code-”

A loud explosion came from the doors and shook the room. A tick later, the doors were no longer standing as sentries rushed the room. Stunned from the sound, Krolia couldn’t do much at the moment, but she watched as Keith immediately set to action. Pulling out his sword and sliding across the floor to cut off the sentries leg and slicing its head off. Running up to the next guard, he sliced through its armor with a powerful strike. He then jumped onto another one, attempting to drive his blade all the way through. However, the sentry simply grabbed Keith and tossed him aside. 

Krolia then stood up, pulling out her pistol and started shooting at the sentries running as fast as she could towards the sword and grasping the hilt. It was like meeting up with an old friend as she twisted the hilt in her hand, pulling it out of the sentries body and easily kicked the robot off balance before cleanly slicing its body in half. 

She heard the sound of a rifle being fired behind her and barely dodged the shot as it was aimed at her head. She dodged more shots and tossed her sword at the closest sentry, watching the blade dig itself through its head while she shot down the others nearby. Finally, she pulled the sword out of the droid’s head before turning around and nearly slicing another one behind her in half. But since he blade did go through its whole body, she simply grunted and kicked it off.

More rifles were charging and she was prepared to fight them off before she noticed Trugg holding Keith hostage. 

“Surrender or die.”

She sighed, already running through a plan in her head as she willed her blade to shift back into its knife form and held both of her arm up in surrender while loosely handling her weapons. She still had a few more cards to play. 

“We can make a deal.”

“What are you doing?!”

She looked over to Keith, feeling remorseful for never being there when he was young, and she hoped he could feel how much she cared for him.  
“I left you once. I’ll never leave you again.” 

Krolia looked over to Trugg, fixing the warlord with a cold gaze. 

“Give us a ship, and I’ll give you the codes to the weapon.”

“Hmph. Why should I trust you?” Trugg scoffed.  
“You don’t have a choice.” Krolia stated simply, laying each reason out carefully to Trugg. “I’m the only one who knows the access code. If you try to break in, the room will self-destruct. Once we’re airborne, I’ll give you the code.”  
She could tell Trugg would rather torture or kill her first to get her hands on the code instead, but she signaled for her troops to lower their guns and as Krolia slowly approached, the warlord shoved Keith towards her. 

“Be quick about it before I change my mind.”

Krolia quietly hooked her arm around Keith’s and dragged him out of the room. They needed to get out of here, and fast. 

* * *

 

“I still can’t believe you’d give them the weapon just to save me! You compromised the mission!”

She had heard this being told to her for about the third time in a varga, and she was frankly getting a little tired of it. 

_You’ll understand once we’re at a safe distance from these people_. 

Krolia turned around to glare at Keith.  
“Keith, shut up and trust me.”

As she started to enter code to connect to the radio of the room where the super weapon was, she tried to remain as calm as she could. Trugg would only keep her word until they were airborne, and she hoped Keith was as good a pilot as he was a fighter. 

“Commander Trugg, we are prepared for liftoff. Are you at the weapons console?”

“Affirmative.” Trugg’s voice replied.

Krolia recited the code out to the warlord, aware that Keith was angrily scowling at her behind her back, but his feet then vanished away as he made for the ships controls. The seat moved forward towards the head of the ship, where Keith was prepared for his next orders. 

“The code is Beta-5-2-7-4 Omega-5-4-5.”

She waited and could hear a slight beep from over the monitor, followed by a long cut of silence. Then, Trugg sounding pleased replied. 

“Confirmed.”  
“Get us out of here, now!” Krolia ordered, bracing herself as Keith punched the controls forward, shooting their ship out of the hangar at the fastest speed he could possibly manage. 

Barely half a minute went by and both of them could hear a beeping warning on Keith’s monitor. Krolia was more surprised at how quick Trugg decided to fire on them instead of waiting a little longer to give them false hope that she might have upheld their end of the bargain.

“They’re locking onto us! Hold on!”

As beams from the zaiforge cannons shot around them, Krolia could only grab onto the handles of the ship as she trusted Keith to get them out of here. While he grunted at the controls and dodged as much as he could, she was mentally counting down at how long it would take for each of the superweapons’ doors to open. Once that time was up, the cannon fire should cease. 

As their ship flipped and tumbled out into space, a beam grazed their wing, causing Keith to groan in frustration.

“This is why you shouldn’t have made that trade for me! We could die, and you just handed that weapon over to Trugg!”  
“No, Keith.” Krolia said calmly, her mental countdown was now over. “I handed them over to _it_.”

If he was confused at her statement, he didn’t show it. As if on cue, the firing suddenly ceased. Keith turned back to look, but Krolia already knew why they weren’t being shot at anymore. With any luck, the super weapon should starve itself to death after its made work of anyone else left at that base. 

“We’re far enough away. They stopped firing at us.”

Keith left the ship on autopilot as the chair moved back and stood up to look at Krolia. She searched for her knife and held it out for Keith. 

“I should give this back to you.”

He warily looked at the knife before returning it to his side and eyeing Krolia suspiciously.

“How were you able to use it?”

Krolia took a moment to compose herself, thinking of all of the memories she held of earth. Of James. Of Keith. Of the day when she had to leave all of that behind. After she was ready to confront this, she looked up at Keith.  
“Because it used to be mine, before I gave it to your father.”

“You’re my… mom?”

_Yes, Starlight…_ She thought, staring at his face and being reminded of James when she saw those beautiful eyes. _I missed you so much_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy quiznack, I finally got off my lazy ass and finished it! WHOOOO! Also, what better time to end this part of the fic than on a special Red/Black paladins birthday?  
> Thank all of you for reading and supporting this fic. At first, I just wrote this for my own pleasure and didn't really think anyone but me would care about it, but seeing all of you comment and scream at me in the comments gave me the energy to write each chapter, hoping to hear more from you. I will still continue this series for a bit longer since I've grown a huge soft spot for Krolia and James, and when those parts come out, I hope you all read it!  
> You can find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or Instagram [ straccia_tellawriting](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on my [Tumblr](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) or [ Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/straccia_tellawriting/) if you want to chat.


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